Esther Pearl Watson Before the landlord finds us
Acrylic, enamel & silver leaf on panel 48 x 48 inches
This is a large painting, given its outsider flavor. It has blown me away. Why?
It seems to connect with real life, and has a freedom about its expression that touches a chord in me. Esther Pearl has lived (apparently) life with an oddball family (Daddy built spaceships in the garage) and does not hesitate, riddled with doubt about her worthiness or worry about it being ridiculous to tell her story. There it is, in glorious home-made detail...but connecting a real sense of atmosphere and beauty (the sky is lavish, the fields stretch into the distant evening, and the dirt yard meltingly soft and beautiful) with the quirky childishness of folk art. Yet its about serious shit going on. I mean, running out on the rent...there is an urgency and a terribleness about it. Its not cosy, not safe, not pretty. We all understand the implications, and that is what gives this work its strength somehow. It is real, it connects to humans. On that note, I have to post another painting here...
Out of gasacrylic on panel
8 x 10 inches
Here's (Dad?) racing across the highway with the (tiny) pint of gas that'll get them all out of there. The kids stand with their hair blowing as the cars whip by. Grit on the shoulder, exhaust, slip roads... and then that wonderful skyline and cloudscape. While all that is going on, someone (the artist - the artist in all of us) is looking around, seeing the world in all its fullness. It has the attention to seemingly irrelevant but telling detail that folk art has, and a lack of theorizing and paring down that in its directness, enriches the image.
Way to go Esther.
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