Madame Brightside

A portrait without a face: brightness worn as a costume. Teal, blush, orange, and cobalt jostle in a dense patchwork of marks, each one cheerful, the accumulation almost too much, exactly the way a performed good mood feels.

From the top corner, gold pours down the canvas like a crown melting in the heat of keeping it together. The glamour is real, and it is also running.

Newspaper surfaces through the colour, the world’s noise papered over with optimism. The title curtsies while the surface confesses.

Symbolic language

• Dense bright patchwork, cheerfulness performed at full volume.
• The molten gold pour, a crown melting, but still gold.
• Cobalt and teal beneath, the cooler truth under the warmth.
• Newspaper fragments, what the brightness is pasted over.

Keep smiling, darling. The gold is running, and she knows, and she smiles anyway.