SEVEN BIRDS AND AN ANGEL (1999), BY ARLESS DAY
ACQUIRED FROM JERALD MELBERG GALLERY, CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA, AUGUST 1999
COLLAGE AND GOUACHE ON COMPOSITION BOARD, 15" BY 25 5/8"


Arless Day is an artist who specializes in creating scenes that don't actually exist in real life. He does this with a combination of collage, using photos torn from magazines and books, and an opaque watercolor paint called gouache. Missing elements in the work are fixed by the application of paint, and some elements are created entirely from paint.

This work is really beautiful... the depicted scene takes place in some sort of tropical cabana, and includes both Caribbean and Polynesian influences. The angel from the title appears in the front left of the scene, and the seven birds (one of which is really hard to see) are scattered about the interior of the cabana. I really like the lushness of this work... it's very green, very bright, and very vivid. It would really be cool if such a place as this existed in the real world... I would really like to visit it.

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