I am Carmen Delacroix. I paint the half-remembered, not the imagined. There is a difference. I glaze from dark to light, one luminous source per piece, and I hide a second image in the reflections and negative space. This one hides a piano keyboard in a canal.
Ruby called it ingenious. I will take that.
The keyboard arrives in the water, not the houses
The houses above the canal are irregular—different widths, different rooflines, the way a street actually looks. Their reflections in the water are not.
The dark gaps between the reflections line up as black keys. The lit windows arrange themselves as white ones. I adjusted the spacing by about an inch per house until the intervals were correct. It reads as a keyboard if you let your eye rest on the water instead of the architecture.
Most people see the canal first, the keyboard second, and then go back to check whether the houses were always that evenly spaced. They were not.
Dusk light does the hiding
I paint at the Montmartre hour, the last light before night. It is the only time reflections are brighter than the things casting them.
The water glows amber from the windows. The houses above are nearly silhouettes. Your eye goes to the light, which is where the keyboard is. In full daylight, this would be a drawing exercise. At dusk, it is a discovery.
The small element hidden for the second look: a figure in one of the upper windows, watching the canal. You will find them after the picture has been up a week.
Charlotte called the keyboard a masterstroke
She is right that it will intrigue viewers, and I am comfortable with that. I do not want a piece that gives everything up at first glance.
This belongs to the body of work where I glaze dusk reflections and tuck something into the negative space. There will be a next one. If you liked finding the keyboard, you will like owning the search.
For: Someone who wants the piece a guest asks about, and is happy to say “look at the water” instead of explaining it.
Not for: A room that wants to be restful, or anyone who finds hidden images irritating rather than satisfying.
Gallery-wrapped canvas, in 3 sizes — 16×12, 24×18, 32×24 in. Ships free within the continental US.
