Viridi 2020

Camilla d'Errico’s ‘Viridi’ is a painting with a lot of greens, made sometime in the 20th or 21st century, and the colour is really the thing here, right? The paint handling is so smooth, almost unreal, like looking at a digital image, but knowing it's handmade. The way the greens shift and blend, especially in the snake and lizard, it's all so seamless. Look at the way the light catches the scales, there is such care taken to the rendering. D'Errico's greens aren’t just colours, they are like a mood, a world onto themselves. The composition is interesting too, the creatures arranged to frame the face, drawing our eyes in. It reminds me a little bit of the work of Mark Ryden and his ilk, this approach to painting figures in hyperreal detail, and embracing a candy coloured palette. It's a conversation between the cute and the slightly unnerving, leaving you with more questions than answers.