Portfolio Room from Cathy Read

Rendezvous at the V and A.

The sky doesn’t look like a summer sky. There’s a brooding, intense, feel, as if there’s a gathering storm. Yet all is sunlight and sweetness everywhere else. Candy bright colours mingle in delicious shades. almost good enough to eat. You can practically taste the flavours.
People watching in art.

People often hang around iconic buildings. Landmarks make excellent meeting places, and there will often be figures loitering. They may look suspicious but their intentions are innocent.

In the lower centre of the painting, a lone figure stands. The details are is ambiguous and it’s unclear whether they are standing still on one leg, or pacing in the entrance.
Creating stories about the mysterious people in painting?

Do you enjoy stories? I often make up tales about people when I paint them. I wonder what their lives are like. I think this figure is a woman, but the painting makes that unclear and I’m choosing not to check. The uncertainty appeals. The person is framed by the archway of the main gates to the V and A. Why are they there?

Sunlight cast shadows on the stone behind a metal name sign, obscuring it’s letter, which would otherwise be clear. More strange shadows imply sunlight, like the green shadow of a figure standing to the right of the stone column. Just out of the picture.

Some shadows are missing, like under the arch, near the Victoria of the sign . This results in a distortion of perspective. The picture feels like a paper sculpture that’s beginning to unravel.

More figures, on the right, appear to be entering the gateway, Are they in a queue to enter some part the museum? You may know, but not knowing allows you to speculate and make up stories, and I like stories.

And what of our central lone figure?

Who are they waiting for?

Have they been waiting long?
What are they going to do and see when they meet? So many possible answers…