Page 15 - the NOISE June 2016

WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS FROM LEFT: Are We Sheep? and Hang Man are a few more of Priya Drews’“Death: A Melodrama” series,
STORY BY
THE MELODRAMA OF LIFE TOLD THROUGH CITRUS featured at the Barefoot Cowgirl this June.
CLAIR ANNA ROSE
Death is the inevitable finale to each person’s time on Earth, but even though all lives end by a noose in the moldering and dimly lit parlor, a chair kicked on its side, and is followed by The
this very same conclusion it makes it no easier for most to cope with. Wanting to choose a theme of the human experience all could relate to, painter Priya Drews decided to play with the theme of death in her latest series of paintings, “Death: A Melodrama.”
For the painter, life first gave her lemons through a co-worker. The gift of a bag of lemons looked like they would make good models, and inspired a series of paintings — all featuring a lemon as the subject. “I started painting really big lemons in a variety of different colors, then these ideas just started coming about putting the lemon in instead of a person — or a car in one case,” Ms. Drews recalls. “It just has kind of burgeoned from there. This time I decided I would do a theme and I had seen a Tina Mion show about death. I thought we’re all going to die, so it is a good subject. I thought I’d have all the different ways you could die — as a lemon. There are endless varieties, and I could keep going on and on.”
What may have started as still-life concepts, soon took on a surrealistic twist — she realized the lemons could take the place of people, characters and objects in various scenes, from the ordinary to the mythical — Prometheus from Greek Mythology chained to the rock, a lemon seated in a the center of an interrogation scene, or lemons in place of one of Tarot suit symbols. In one series she had lemons taking the place of eggs — a lemon cracked like an egg with an egg over easy on a plate, lemons in eggcups and lemons descending from a spaceship.
In her latest series Ms. Drews once again stars lemons in the unfolding melodrama — all death scenes. After coming up with a concept for a piece, Ms. Drews compiles images to support the theme of her painting, searching the internet for photographs to use as references
— what does a guillotine look like from a crowd’s perspective? For Apres Moi, le Deluge she found a half dozen images from different perspectives before beginning her work. “I decided on the one where you (the viewer) is down on the ground looking up. For that one I actually had to work from a cartoon, because there’s not a lot of guillotines around anymore,” she says with a laugh. “The painting itself has kind of a flat quality — it’s very cartoonish.”
There are many ideas the artist can conjure — like a Great White with a gargantuan lemon clenched in its jaws — but with those ideas, the artist must seek out and create a composite of images to render a study from. And from her visual research she creates a work of art. By The Seashore shows a familiar rendition of the Great White Shark resembling Jaws. “you’d be surprised how difficult it is to paint a shark,” the artist says of the painting. “I thought it would be pretty simple and straightforward, but I had to scrape that one down about three times just to get it right.”
The artist paints in oils primarily, though other mediums are used on occasion. She begins by toning the canvas, or blocking in the background with the darkest colors in the scene. With this first step complete she must wait a few days for the oils to dry before beginning on the next layer. “Usually the first image I have in my mind is the outline of how it goes — those are the images I end up starting with. Usually the first image to come to mind is the last one, though I find other views of it,” Ms. Drews describes her thought process while painting.
Fried is the sequel to the interrogation scene from a previous set of paintings, and shows the lemon seated in an electric chair. Hang Man and The Funeral are both set in the same room, inspired by the interior décor from an English home. Hang Man shows a lemon hanging from
Funeral — the dead lemon in its final repose in a casket in the same room.
“The interesting thing about that room I started with — I wanted the feeling of 1930s interior,”
Ms. Drews explains about the room, which inspired the paintings. “I looked for a bunch of photographs online, and I found pictures of a house in England where it had not been changed since the 1930s. There was damp on the walls, the wallpaper was peeling — I’ve always been fascinated by abandoned houses — it was kind of creepy and I thought, ‘Well perfect!’ Nobody would really have a funeral in a house like that but it added to the creepiness and macabre feeling about it.”
Hang Man is not the only in the series showcasing lemon deaths by suicide, Tiny Jumper, shows the Golden Gate Bridge — though I was unable to spot the lemon jumper in the scene. Another painting Are We Like Sheep? shows one lemon after another leaping mindlessly off a cliff edge. Back Stabber is a colorful piece with a pop feel and bright orange and yellow lemon wallpaper in the background with a floating lemon stabbed through the center with a paring knife. One of the artist’s favorites in the show, Crime Scene, shows only the chalk outline of a lemon in an alleyway beside two trashcans.
From a crowd’s perspective, Apres Moi, le Deluge shows a mob of lemons surrounding a guillotine, and the executioner lemon standing in such a way that it appears to be gazing at the lemon half lying beside the fallen blade. So many scenes, grotesque in nature, are made humorous when replaced with something so benign as a piece of fruit, all gore swept from the scene and replaced with a cheery yellow.
Like Prometheus, Coming ‘Round The Mountain plays on a classic theme, and a scene many can remember from when it sprang into American pop culture. Coming Around the Mountain plays on the Snidely Whiplash character from The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show — the young woman in distress tied and left on the train tracks, a lemon in her place, waiting to be rescued. “The train tracks came along as well,” Ms. Drews comments. “It was fun painting that old time steam engine. It just cracks me up, because it reminds me of that Dudley Do-Right cartoon with Snidely Whiplash always tying the girl to the train tracks. I wanted the train coming around the mountain, bearing down on the lemon — so the train was going to be really big.”
Firing Squad shows the silhouettes of soldiers with guns aiming to shoot down a lemon standing against a sunset painted sky. Bye For Now veers from the humorous vein, “The last one I did was a lemon in a hospital bed in the ICU with the flat line on the screen, and there’s the ghost lemon floating around,” Ms. Drews describes. “We never know when we’re going to die, and we don’t know what happens, but I always assume we’re coming back at some point.”
“Death: A Melodrama” by Priya Drews will be on display at Barefoot Cowgirl Books, 18 N. San Francisco Street, for the month of June. During the First Friday ArtWalk June 3, 6-8PM, a reception will be held so viewers can meet the artist and take in the melodrama. facebook. com/priyadrewsfineart
| Clair Anna Rose has been melodramatic over a lack of lemons before.
clair@thenoise.us
thenoise.us • the NOISE arts & news • JUNE 2016 • 15