Amber. One lamp’s worth of it, spreading through a greenhouse at dusk until every pane of glass has a little gold in the corner.
Everything else has gone blue. The deep indigo kind of blue that happens outside a window about twenty minutes after you stop noticing. Ivy on the glass, wood gone warm where the light hits it, a thin thread of violet in the darkest shadows. A quiet place. Nothing happening.
Now stand back three steps
The panes, the vines and the gaps between them make a moth. Wings open, spread across the glass. Carmen built it out of things that were already in the room — no shape painted on top, no trick, just the frames of the glasshouse and the ivy falling exactly where they had to fall.
Up close it disappears and you get a greenhouse again. Walk backwards and it returns. Kids find it before adults do, every single time, and they will drag you over by the sleeve to show you.
Carmen works this way on purpose. She draws the ordinary thing first, properly, and hides the second picture last. She will never tell you what she put in a painting. She only asks if you found it.
What happens once it is up
Someone new walks into the room and stops. Then they move. That is the whole thing — people physically change position in front of it, and then they say wait. As one critic put it, it is “a delightful visual puzzle.” You will explain it a hundred times and enjoy it every time.
Sizes and the plain numbers
A high quality print of Carmen’s digital painting, on museum-grade archival matte paper. Non-reflective, so a lamp or a window opposite gives you the greenhouse back instead of a glare. Printed edge to edge with no white border, which means the amber runs right off the edges.
Landscape. 14×11 in (36×28 cm) is $29. Most people take the 20×16 in (51×41 cm) at $49 — big enough that the moth appears from across the room. Go 24×18 in (61×46 cm), $69, for a hallway or above a bed. Free shipping in the continental US. It arrives rolled in a tube, ready for a frame you already own, and it looks right pinned up bare too. Made to order, so allow up to ten business days before it ships — and nobody on your street will have this one.
One honest thing
This is a slow painting. It is dark, quiet and mostly blue, and it rewards someone who looks twice. If you want bright colour on the wall that reads in half a second, this is not it.
If a puzzle on the wall sounds like your kind of house, take it home. Otherwise have a look through the rest of Carmen’s hidden dusk pieces, or follow her and you will see the next one before the rest of us do.
One is a piece. Two is a set. Three is a collection.
Almost nobody stops at one. A second work by the same hand turns a wall into a pairing. A third turns it into something you chose rather than something you bought. There are 6 other works by Carmen Delacroix available.
Rooftops Resting Gold – Carmen Delacroix | Fine Art Print Price range: $129 through $229
Witness Barely Waking – Carmen Delacroix | Digital Download$19
Key Beneath the Moon – Carmen Delacroix | Digital Download$19
Window Keeping Vigil – Carmen Delacroix | Digital Download$19
Willow Sleeping Below – Carmen Delacroix | Fine Art Print Price range: $129 through $229
Climb Folding Inward – Carmen Delacroix | Fine Art Print Price range: $29 through $69
