She Who Greets with Fire 2021

Camilla d'Errico's 'She Who Greets with Fire' is a dreamscape rendered in delicate color. The work's made of gentle pastels, almost like a memory or a half-remembered fairy tale. The real magic of this piece lies in the texture and the way d’Errico handles her materials. You can almost feel the softness of the pastel against the paper, or maybe canvas, and the way she layers the colours to create depth and luminosity. The hair is a particular highlight. Look at the flowing lines and the subtle shifts in tone, from the fiery red at the top to the softer pink at the tips. It's as if each strand has its own life, its own story to tell. D'Errico reminds me a little of Mark Ryden, in her embrace of a kind of surreal, dreamlike figuration. But d'Errico has her own thing, her own unique vision that sets her apart. It's a vision that invites us to see the world with new eyes, to embrace the beauty and the strangeness of the world around us.