STORY BEHIND THE ART OF ANTOANETA DENKIN

24th Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists and Marin Art and Garden Center

Two Pitahaya

Selenicerius megalanthus, S. costaricensis

Somewhere in a book I read an aphorism by Frederick Nietzsche, “Learning to see beautiful things, helps us to make them beautiful.” As I am relatively new to the practice of botanical art, it helped me to rediscover beauty in nature and broaden my knowledge of it. In 2018, I happened upon a strange, primordial looking fruit, a dragon fruit (Hylocerus undatus), a type of cactus fruit, and was immediately attracted to this strange, otherworldly object. The outer skin is red, and the interior flesh is white. I was so intrigued by the shape and colors of this unusual, exotic fruit that I decided to make a painting based on it. I was just starting with botanical painting and wanted to challenge myself.

This year I found another dragon fruit, a yellow variety (Selinicereus megalanthus). This fruit included a stem, thus introducing another color to the palette, and quite different from the previous specimen. I decided to make a double portrait of the two dragon fruits, similar, but different. The yellow dragon fruit has smoother skin, less wrinkled than the red version. The challenge was how to achieve color that approximated the bright color of the fruit. I had to buy additional yellow pigments, that I would use almost straight from the tube, for the colors to remain bright and vibrant. I used hansa yellow, transparent yellow, and bismuth yellow lightly, to keep the yellow colors bright and clean. In addition, I did some preliminary color charts for the yellow colors that guide me while I am painting. My desire was to render as much detail as I could, so the two fruits are true to what I saw in color and form. The red dragon fruit was easier to work on, as I have more experience with the color red and its variants. In both cases, I strove to include as much information as possible. I approached them differently with more knowledge of how to work on the red one, and hardly any idea how to do the yellow one. In addition to capturing the nuanced colors of the fruits, I also wanted to render the interesting surface terrain of the forms, with the space between the bracteoles (the spike like protuberances on the surface of the fruit) suggesting a strange and foreign landscape. Building perspective, not only with color, but also with precise drawing, was one of the major thoughts that was constantly with me while working on the fruits.

The two forms in Two Pitahaya feel solid and heavy. They resemble small grenades that, if thrown, would release fire with a broad range of colors – ‘color bombs.’ I compared them with miniature monuments, heavy and indestructible. Some people may say they look ugly, but I find them fascinating, beautiful, and quite unique. I hope that Two Pitahaya shares my emotions through the double portrait of the dragon fruits.

Next Story

Back to List