The Last Peony 

Curator: I am struck by how tactile "The Last Peony" feels, despite it likely being an oil painting, maybe with colored pencil mixed in. There's a tangible sense of weight to the fabrics, especially against the checkerboard background. Editor: It’s melancholic, wouldn't you say? Like a baroque sensibility, all drama and repressed longing in this single gesture. The figures seem caught between worlds, watched over by the unwavering gaze of the jaguar. Curator: It certainly pulls you in. Speaking to materials and production, the detail is extraordinary, making me consider Parkes' process, layer upon layer, a deliberate building of textures, creating a very real fantasy that blends painting with possibly textile design on the patterned elements of the piece. Editor: Absolutely. And isn’t it fascinating how Parkes’ figuration intersects with historical portrayals of the ideal feminine form? Her vulnerability almost feels like a challenge, or a refusal, when positioned within those art historical tropes. Consider the rose: simultaneously a symbol of love and an emblem of transience and loss. The gesture suggests themes of mortality, maybe. Curator: Yes, and also note how Parkes subverts typical gender dynamics by giving both figures a distinct softness while highlighting their almost manufactured otherness—his pointed cap and her fragile wings feel intentional for separating them from our world, but bringing them closer together. They stand together as fabricated materials more than natural individuals. Editor: And that manufactured element reflects societal expectations too. It prompts me to think about constructed identity – gender roles performed through dress and behavior, subtly encoded in this surreal landscape and echoed in the watchful presence of that primal animal. Curator: It’s fascinating how such an overtly fantastical scene can highlight material realities about fantasy itself; it becomes manufactured, consumed and even traded, through art, here even, oil, pigment, labor as an entry into another life. Editor: Precisely, the painting seems like an allegory. It speaks volumes, inviting us to confront complex narratives about identity and artifice through its evocative tableau. Curator: A tableau carefully, deliberately constructed through meticulous planning and careful handling of the media, as are, arguably, the expectations that surround us. Editor: That makes me think there's more here that can be extracted through different cultural and class lenses. An artwork that stays with you.