Head In The Clouds 2021

Kayla Mahaffey made this painting, Head In The Clouds, with a flat application of acrylic paint, giving it a pop art kind of feel. The title suggests something airy and dreamlike, but the painting is rendered with clean lines, and the girl at its center has a very serious expression. There’s a tension there, a sense of cartoonish unreality, which is also expressed through the cartoon birds and flowers. One cute blue bird, in her hand, seems to have flown straight out of a Disney film. Look at the way the light falls across the cloud-like shapes behind her head. They're rendered with airbrush-like, soft gradations that sit in contrast to the rest of the painting, creating a layered effect. The whole piece reminds me a bit of the work of Kerry James Marshall who also uses flat planes of color to build his compositions. Both artists invite us to consider the complexities of identity and representation in art. Ultimately, Mahaffey’s work is about ambiguity, and the myriad ways we can experience and interpret the world around us.