Please come by Future Shock for the Vinyl Monologues 2.0 show, running through October 2021! This piece - Girl with a Pearl Gauge - along with over a hundred others from Portland femme & nonbinary identifying artists.
Most of us have seen this painting before - Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665 Johannes Vermeer. We remember the gaze, the hovering pearl earring, and our own lingering questions. Obviously, this painting was my reference for Girl with a Pearl Gauge.
I started with a 12" vinyl record, lightly coated in gesso and rendered the image with acrylic paints. Glitter was inlcuded throughout the painting process in layers to create depth and texture. The acrylic paints were then sealed, and the record was coated in a ~.5" layer of clear resin with holographic microglitter. In total, this project took ~40 hours over the course of 6 weeks.
With this painting, I was aiming to reinterpret Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring from my perspective. I sought to preserve the general composition of the image and the impact of the gaze, while changing details to create a new persona and context. That persona was "the coolest woman in the world, according to my inner teen heart". In my imagination, I met her at a rave -- it's one of the moments when your heart skips and time stops. She is there, existing comfortably within herself - unbothered. Her identity is asserted through fashion: her gauge, hair clip and buttons allow for no ambiguity. She wears periwinkles in her hair, suggesting the beginning of something new. Fuzzy eastern tailed blue butterflies flutter around her, attracted to her flowers, although maybe that part I hallucinated. As soon as the lights change with the pulse of the music, the moment is gone, but I kept the smile.
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