Golden GirlDeelee

What stopped me in the photograph was the look Deelee gives the camera. Direct, sure of itself, not asking anything of me.

there is no gold in oil paint.

None of the gold in this painting is paint. It is real gold leaf, laid onto the canvas: the elements on her clothing, the hat, and everything behind her. There is no gold in oil paint. Whatever you build with it is a pile of decisions pretending to be something it cannot be, so on this one I stopped asking it to pretend.

What I actually wanted was the rest of her. Her breasts and her stomach held my attention longer than anything else in that photograph, and they were what had to be painted. That is where the weeks went.

It ended without a decision. I kept going and at some point everything had fallen into place, organically, with nothing left that wanted changing.

What do you do with it?

Inspired by a photograph of Dutch Deelee. Second of two canvases of Deelee. What the painting makes of it is my doing, not hers. Part of Painted Idols.

The photograph this came from was made to be forgotten. This canvas was not. It took weeks, and it will hang on a wall for years.

Ordering takes a minute. Deciding where it goes is the part that takes nerve, because everyone who walks into that room will see it and decide something about you. That is the real decision, and it is yours. The ones who own these stop noticing the reaction after about a month, and never stop noticing the painting. Hang it anyway.

There is one of this canvas and there will never be a second. If you have read this far, you are already picturing the wall.