Extract from “A Journey of Broken Landscapes” - The West of West Review

“Sara made and sold paintings; well, she tried, at least – mottled swashes of reds and blues with the silhouettes of hollow people dripping through. She brought them into the co-op gallery at the end of February, two new pieces every week. She’d step in with the paintings under her arm, with open sandals, stained orange capris, brown braids, and an array of tank tops and cardigans. Dropping her new paintings at the counter, she’d march straight to her older submissions, stare at them, ankles wide, total silence, a good five minutes per piece of art. Her body would tense as she forced herself through some internal process, trying to understand why they wouldn’t sell.

I kept one painting of hers in a dark corner, away from the skylights. The entire canvas, almost my height, was drenched in a wash of inky blacks and cavern blues, real oil paints swirling in a determined, dark precision. The paint held every chill in the air and shadow in your soul. And floating in the middle of the abyss was a silhouette of a man in a suit and bowler hat, dusk-orange, like a cutout the colour of instant macaroni. He had fat dollops of red for eyes and a circle of graffiti arrows pointing inward around his belly.

That one, I bought.”

- Andrew Wade.

You can read the rest of his award-winning short story at The West of West Review.

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