Water Jug c. 1936

Yolande Delasser made this watercolour painting of a water jug, but we don’t know exactly when. I love how the jug is presented in three slightly different ways. You can see the blue floral motifs on the body of the jug, like the shadows of a memory. Delasser has really considered the object she is depicting. I wonder what it was like for her to paint it? What was she thinking about? For me, the muted colours of the jug feel like a half-remembered dream, as though the flowers, the jug and the background are all part of the same world, rendered in subtle tones. There is a feeling of the jug emerging from the paper, as though it were slowly coming into being. Just like Delasser’s painting, my own work embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple readings to emerge. Artists are constantly in dialogue and exchange, inspiring one another across time.