The unexpected scale of this blows my mind because my initial assumption of size is, on further examination, revealed to be off by several orders of magnitude. The reveal happens for me through the yellow ladder just left of center, then further supported by the orange scaffolding and blue Porta-Potty. It makes me think of a landscape formed by gods and monsters, where the struggles and concerns of mere mortals gets swallowed by the hugeness of the environment.
The mirroring of the two rooms with just the subtle difference in hue is so very theatrical, with such a light touch. I know they’re probably painted different colors, but I like to imagine it could be nothing more than different color temperatures of light: a cooler fluorescent on the left, warm on the right maybe augmented by the bounce-light of the sun off the bricks of the building exterior.
The tension created in my mind between the beauty of this image—an unheard-of shade of orangey red snaking through a lusciously charcoal-grey-black landscape fading to pastoral edging trees in the distance—and my knowledge of the chemical-industrial-environmental horror it represents, creates a shiver down my spine and makes me unable to stop looking.
Two conflicting realities of equal lushness but opposite quality. They constantly push and pull against one another, vying for prominence: the trompe-l’oeil flatness of the painted forest backdrop pushes against the genuine dimensionality of the urban back alley. But that tension gets diffused by their unexpected agreement on the subject of perspective and vanishing points. And the inescapability of that rough, unpainted edge of the drop: a frame that undercuts the illusion of what it frames, that says, “No no, what is in here is different than what is out there.” And while the little girl may be contained within that frame, she also seems on the verge of stepping across it from one world to the next.
