notes on cranberry jelly
Disclaimer: this post is not sponsored by Liquitex Heavy Body Acrylic Quinacridone Magenta.
Earlier in December, my partner and I hosted two of our dear friends for a year-end meal. Over dessert, we ruminated about the year to come. After a series of questions relating to our growth, Tessa asked the room the most thought-provoking question of all:
What is your favourite colour?
It has been over a year since I started painting primarily with quinacridone magenta. It isn’t always this shade which arrives on the canvas, but the spectrum between carmine, chocolate cosmos, and garnet. In my magenta period, I have produced four works; three large abstracts, one small nude.
Big Red acrylic on canvas, 3’ by 4’ March 2024
It isn’t remarkable to be locked within a colour. Nearly every artist is at some point. Of course, you may think of Picasso’s blue period, Rembrandts warm dark hues, or the International Klein Blue. But when I think of magenta, I think of Mary Pratt’s Red Currant Jelly (1972), Andrea Solaja’s Andromeda III (2024), and Andrew Cadima’s Red Waters series.
I also think of all the stuff within me.
My mum tells the story of me as a toddler, abundant and stubborn, insisting that my blood was jelly. These days, slightly less abundant and definitely more stubborn, I have a fear of blood. In the moments of pure terror, when I ever so gracefully cut into one of my fingers (often when slicing tomatoes), I wish I could remember this notion of inner jelly. Cranberry perhaps — magenta in hue.
Instead, these moments of terror become reimagined across my palette. It is only natural to be curious about what resides in ones body - our vessel into and out of this world. With discomfort, I imagine the surgical stitches in my left shoulder, menstruation, the repercussions of mononucleosis, and of those painful moments using a serrated knife in the kitchen.
Our conversation on colour ended with the notion that some may believe the question to be childish. I’ll continue to lean into my love for magenta—an ode to my toddler self, a little girl convinced of inner jelly.
xoxo Anna
P.S what is your favourite colour?