Stella Clarke

This little painting is beautifully box-framed in bees-wax stained Victorian Ash.

This recalls a time when girls were expected to wait.  It is about how much hope and effort girls put in to presenting their beauty to the world; there is vulnerability here.  It is about the wait for love, for life to happen, and about the constraint dictated by an era.  Yet, the mood is musical, a celebration of being young, of loneliness overcome in friendship. 

This is a painting about the past, and about holidays.  Once upon a time, there was a wonderful art deco hotel that looked like this, in a seaside resort on the Victorian coast.  Families drove for miles to stay there.  This is the moment when the children emerge, numbed and tired from the journey, at a place that feels strange, and not quite ready to be happy. However, the camera is out and their parents want them to come out of their shells so that they can capture this special moment.

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