Marylin, the Trapeze Artist 1935 - 1942

Editor: Here we have Frank Gray's, *Marylin, the Trapeze Artist*, created between 1935 and 1942 using watercolor and coloured pencil. It gives me the feeling of…almost peering into a dream, or perhaps a slightly unsettling memory. I’m drawn to the sort of layered puppetry element. How do you interpret this work? Curator: Ah, yes! It’s as though Gray has pulled back the curtain on…himself, perhaps? I wonder if it’s a window into the artist's feelings of control or, maybe the opposite: of being controlled. I am curious about why a trapeze artist and I think, perhaps, he saw something daring, yet ultimately vulnerable, in the trapeze. There’s also the question of the surrounding puppets: Are these projections of self or members of his own personal “circus”? Editor: That is fascinating. So, this idea of "personal circus"... Do you mean like, an exploration of different aspects of his own personality? Or is there something more literal there, regarding influences and company? Curator: Could be either! Or, even better: both. A lot of great art exists in that space. Who are we really, after all, but a collection of different performances and relationships? Maybe Gray's just put that thought onto paper. In art, nothing has to be just "one" thing! That’s why I keep coming back to art - these infinite threads and endless mirrors keep showing new, interesting things. Editor: I really see that. This was a new way of seeing things, definitely one that made me look beyond the surface of the image. Curator: Likewise, your observation makes me reconsider those dangling strings! What are they truly tethering, or severing? Wonderful.