Sugar Bowl c. 1936

Arthur Wegg made this sugar bowl, but when? We don't know. With what? Looks like watercolor, maybe some pencil to outline things. I love how the whole drawing seems to float on the page, a bit like how memories float. The colors are cheerful, almost edible - pinks, yellows, blues - like candy. Look at the way Wegg renders the floral patterns. They're not quite symmetrical, are they? A little wobbly. The marks have a human quality, which stops it from being just a technical drawing. This piece reminds me a little of the work of Mary Delany, who made incredible paper collages of flowers. Both artists share this delight in the natural world. But Wegg's drawing feels more like a dream, a sugary hallucination perhaps. It embraces the blur and imperfection of seeing.