Cloche 2018

Joshua Flint's painting, *Cloche*, presents us with a ghostly figure emerging from a verdant, indeterminate space. The figure is a woman holding a bell jar. The painting's structure is built upon layers of opacity and transparency, with the figure rendered in soft, almost dissolving brushstrokes. The bell jar containing the bird creates a focal point, its clarity contrasting with the surrounding ambiguity. The foliage, rendered in shades of green and brown, seems to both conceal and reveal, playing with our perception. This juxtaposition of the defined and the diffuse engages with ideas of perception and reality. The bell jar, traditionally a symbol of preservation, here creates a sense of confinement, questioning our relationship with nature and knowledge. This work reflects post-structuralist ideas about deconstructing fixed meanings, inviting us to consider the fluid nature of interpretation and the illusion of fixed knowledge.