233. Caramel and watermelon ice cream (Karamell- und Wassermeloneneis)

233. Caramel and watermelon ice cream (Karamell- und Wassermeloneneis), 2025, Öl auf Leinwand, 15 × 20cm, (Darryn Ansted)

I always think of paintings I make as an intersection of my interests and daily life. In the background there is the news of the day. There is the prevaling mainstream and alternative cultures of the day and place. There is the autonomous and poetic scratching that probably means nothing, like sharpening a pencil that just wants to be used for aimless doodling. And there are other bits and pieces. Right now my daughter is asking me to find her bright green novelty sunglasses, which I threw out. I can see how this intersection makes the escape to the garden scene on this china cup represent a valuable motif to me. Humanity seems to right now be like a cartoon character with its head exploring inside the jaws of climate collapse and societal collapse too for that matter. It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine. Probably that is a little of the broader context of the traffic at this intersection. Good even. This combination of ice cream was a good one. I had a taste of it even though for this project I was not meant to be eating the ice creams myself.

This china bowl was lent to me by a friend. It belonged to her grandmother. As I took this bowl to the ice cream shop I handled it very carefully. I could imagine myself tripping up and it smashing into a dozen pieces, and me having to explain what happened. Fortunately, it enjoyed safe passage there and back again. It is from an English set. At first I simply thought it was nice. However, as I painted it, I gained a much greater appreciation for it. I think it might have been an Alice in Wonderland theme. In any case, you can see there is a garden scene on it. There are two blue birds on either side of the garden. The scene has been so inventively wrapped around the bowl that it gives it the feeling of animation. There is also an extension of the scene inside the cup which frames the action from every angle. It makes me think of old animation devices, zoetropes, frescoes or even relief sculpture on a column. The ink is brown, which gives it the feeling of a sketch or a handwritten letter. The use of color is very sparse. It is so sober and elegantly composed. It is from a time and a place before the wild explosion of color on smartphones. Where better to have such an illustration than on a bowl that will be used every day or two. I almost feel like I can’t really take credit for the painting when the subject is doing so much of the heavy lifting like this. Still, I guess there is an alternate reality that the bowl enters now as an element at the intersection of this little art project.