Portrait of the Artist’s Mother

The third installment of seeing my life through the eyes of my over-the-top college art history professor. (For the others in the series, click here.) Please read with a pseudo-English accent.

“In this fresh work from the younger member of the artist group “Duo,” (American, b. 2006) nothing is…well, fresh. Seizing the verboten Nikon from the kitchen counter, the artist captures the chaos not only of the moment, but of the whole school morning. We feel the rush of his mother’s blurred stride, in hot pursuit of her expensive work camera. At the bottom of the image, the artist’s tube sock signifies his brief but defiant stand.  Their feet face off—not quite toe-to-toe—the space above energized, we know, by arms and elbows. Stuck on her sock is a length of scotch tape, the maternal version of the proverbial toilet-paper-on-the-shoe.  Did she place the translucent adhesive strip there, as a marker on her stockinged foot? Does it proudly proclaim ‘I’m wearing mismatched socks on purpose?’ Or is it simply a vestige of the artist’s bygone works, a palimpsest of birthday wrapping torn apart weeks before, now hovering like a fuzzy firmament above the weave? Ultimately, the once-tacky tape is the artist’s reference to his fingers, poised to smear the lens with sticky breakfast compote. But not yet. For in the midst of the pandemonium, we behold a single, serene triangle of red confetti. A triumvirate of mother, son, and Nikon, its crimson pigment hints at the once-red blood pooled on the mother’s shin. Her bruise now dulled to the gray and blue hues of her socks, we wonder, did it arise from a collision with a bicycle pedal, a softball, or a stepping stool?  Fragments in time, all—the frenzy of celebration and consternation—of mother and son, the wheel of life ever spinning onward, upward…backward…”