Kitty Titties 2015

Camilla d'Errico created “Kitty Titties” sometime in the 20th century, using thin layers of paint. Looking at this painting, I imagine d’Errico starting with the figure, almost life-size, with a muted palette, and then she’s thinking: what can I do to disrupt this figure, to queer it? So she paints these rivulets of colour cascading from the top of the canvas, like tears of the rainbow, and what else? Oh, yeah! A kitty mask, a blank slate, and kitty faces on her… you know. It seems like the figure is being overwhelmed by the intensity of colour, which, for me, evokes a feeling of anxiety. How do you find your own form and ground, against the expectations of others? How can you find a way to express the intensity of emotion, without being subsumed by it? I find that a lot of artists, like d’Errico here, keep asking these questions through painting. It’s like they’re saying: “I don’t know the answer, but let’s try to find it together.”