Post by

Michelle Sun

May 12, 2014 at 1:05 PM

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"Leaving the Nest" by Jennybird Alcantara

“Once I was an adult and read the real versions of the fairytales, you know not the ‘Disneized’… you know there’s all this darkness.” Jennybird Alcantara, who’s art works is now exhibiting at Soho AFA gallery, and when it came to the question about her inspirations. This piece, Leaving the Nest, was another masterpiece, another fantasy that Jennybird had brought to the art world from the bottom of her heart. A girl, yet a bird with its head expressed as a young lady’s face is surrounded by forest, standing on a female human body that had details of flora, is the nest mentioned in the title of this work, had a pair of deer hoof. Telling the untold stories of her inside trying to fly away from the confident and pressured area, expecting to reach the heavenly and impassable place – the two world expressed by her choice of organization, color and brushstrokes.

This 17 inches wide, 39 inches tall canvas was framed with bold black and gold border – the figure is centered and has full filled the frame. The head of the girl to the deer toe on the bottom goes from large to small, which creates a flow of the sight for viewers. The dense and detailed body draws attention first. After recognizing the shape of body, we chase up look for her face. As the body breaks into two by the birdlike figure, we will then realize that this is something unfamiliar, something interesting, and something curious. From the left to the right in the center of the canvas are rolls of trees, which are in a smaller scale, creates depth for this art work in contrast with the closest bushes. That is, splitting this art into two different worlds: the expectation and the real world.

Two main color palette covers the canvas of Leaving the Nest: The heaviness of reality verses the sweetness of dream. The birdlike body with baby blue and apricot fur, standing on the flora human body, has a head that is looking upward. As mentioned above, Jennybird has been working on dual nature – inside and outside. The conflict explodes on the canvas with the dreamlike colors that surrounds the bird girl - electric blue, lemon yellow, lime green and salmon pink; and the dense color that holds the natural body down – bistre, forest green and black. Just like the expectations are always unreachable like wanted candies and the reality is always suffocating. Although there are dandelions trying to light up the forest green, they are too weak and had been extinguished by the flora girl. Give a sense that she will rather like to fly out of the nest, searching for love and sweetness in the unknown new world and give up with these little hopes than staying on this deathful land. The carnation pink in the background is so soft and sweet that looks like it’s going to melt and float away, symbolizing an unattainable situation. The contrast in brightness also creates the feeling of realness verses abstraction.

Illusion occurs without being clear and accurate, when the truth is always sharp and defined, which are shown in her control of brushstrokes. The lines that used for the plant in the foreground are delicate where the ones in the background are more blur and smear. When the lines are neat and detail, it would be denser and holds eyeball for a longer time, thus, make the viewer feels more pressured in the real life side. The brushstrokes are more obvious and are smudged together that looks like cotton and clouds, which both had a feeling of sweetness and enjoyable, allows the people who look at this work expect to be in that comfortable situation. The face of the girl with four eyes could also explain this condition of demanding, wanting and hoping to get to the ‘heaven’ – or there isn’t a heaven at all, the sight of the figure is actually expressing the demands of get away from the ordinary and hush life. In other words, the ‘heaven’ can be as simple as ‘freedom’.

With contrasts in color, lines and scales, Jennybird brought us into the conflicts that she and everyone else might face. Delusion appears when stresses in the real world came along. We are always in a situation of demanding and seeing the grass’s always greener on the other side. The bird hasn’t opened her wing means she still has considerations not to fly away and if she does, she might however found something unexpected, which makes a sweet dream into a nightmare.