Watermelon and Vase

WATERMELON AND VASE
There is a specific kind of happiness that only arrives in summer.
Not the happiness of achievement or arrival — something lighter than that. The happiness of a day with no agenda, of a table with cold fruit on it, of plans made that morning that will change by noon and it doesn't matter at all. The happiness of colour at full saturation, of heat that makes you slow down, of everything feeling slightly more possible than it did in January.
Watermelon and Vase was painted from inside that feeling.
This is one of the earliest works in the series — freer, more spontaneous, the hand moving with the particular confidence of an artist who has stopped editing and started playing. The washi tape that built the visual language of the collection's origins is fully present here, layered with acrylic and Posca markers into a composition that buzzes with the energy of something made in the best possible state of mind. The vessel — the human being full of the season, full of the adventure that summer always promises and occasionally delivers — stands in a field of pattern and colour that refuses to be serious about anything.
The watermelon is not a symbol. It is a watermelon. Cold, red, impossibly good on a hot day, the most honest argument for being alive and present that nature ever produced.
Some paintings carry the weight of everything you have learned and survived. This one carries the weight of a perfect summer afternoon. Both are necessary. This one is more fun.
105 × 105 cm (image) · 120 × 120 cm (canvas) · Acrylic, washi tape and mixed media on 100% cotton canvas · 2021 · One of a kind Unframed, delivered rolled. Signed, titled and dated on the reverse. Certificate of Authenticity included.