Pop Goes The Weasel 2017

Curator: Here we have "Pop Goes The Weasel," a mixed-media piece created in 2017 by Camilla d'Errico, known for her contributions to the pop-surrealism movement. Editor: Wow, she's like…drowning in a unicorn's dream! Or is that a pastel dragon strangling her? Either way, it’s wonderfully unsettling and sweet all at once. Curator: The visual vocabulary is undeniably linked to shōjo manga—the big, expressive eyes, the almost cloying sweetness—but then subverted. The heterochromia of the eyes and the ambiguous dragon-serpent-hair piece layered upon her head suggest multiple psychological states. Editor: Layered is the word! It's like a candy-coated anxiety dream. The water droplets—are they tears, or some weird kind of sugary sweat? I find it almost disturbing, in a way that I oddly enjoy. Curator: Water, tears—these are potent symbols within art history and spiritual practice. The purifying power, but also the potential for overwhelming sorrow and grief. Here, on the cusp between girl and something…else. D'Errico presents us with what Carl Jung might refer to as the puer aeternus, a figure stuck in eternal youth, with all its attendant potential and arrested development. Editor: That's it, eternal youth feels like a good hook here! The colour palette, that very dreamy, pastel feel – a total façade. Are we witnessing her suffocating, slowly fading out? Or ascending into something...divine, maybe? Curator: Note, also, the reference to a children's song, or perhaps the nursery rhyme is the fantasy construct being shed or outgrown? The title's ambiguity mirrors the visuals. We project meaning and emotion as readily as we resist it. Editor: She nails this beautiful balance, right? Like a child's sugar rush just before the monstrous bedtime freak-out. So many different, clashing worlds colliding within this one frame. I love the weird tension. Curator: Indeed, it presents a unique perspective that fuses seemingly opposite symbolic structures. One where "cuteness" meets deeper cultural themes of personal evolution, melancholy, and transformation. Editor: Exactly. I think it will take me a while to stop thinking about the dragon, though. Talk about an unusual guardian spirit!