Beauty Captured in Paint

Today for some reason I wanted to refresh myself on the art of a fine artist I discovered through Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion which is a magazine I adore. In one issue they showcased a home in which the owners had many lovely pieces of art on their walls and one such painting pierced me--decadent, luxurious, gorgeous, lavishly detailed and reminiscent of European nobility and royalty in the days of the Divine Right of Kings, the painting also had decidedly irreverent and grotesque touches--I was immediately enraptured.

The artist is Julie Heffernan of New York and I searched for her work online some months ago and revisited it again today. Her painting is so intricate and beautiful if not for the touches of decay and the sinister, it would be too much. Like any great pastry chef knows that a dessert must not be too sweet, so does Julie Heffernan know that beauty needs ugliness to juxtapose and ground it.

Don't take my word for it--here is but one example of her work (being sold by PPOW) entitled Self Portrait with Men in Hats 2007 (all her titles begin with Self Portrait and the titles themselves are so humorous):



For more examples of her incredible work go to PPOW. For those like me without the ability to buy the actual art they are also selling a full color catalogue of her latest show, Booty, for $20.00.