Jacob Aiello

Most people entering my mom’s home would be forgiven for not immediately recognizing the paintings. Mount Shasta produced few scholars of the early European Surrealism movement, and they’d receive no clues from context. We couldn’t afford a washer dryer or regular maintenance on my mom’s Honda Civic, but a Max Ernst lithograph hung above the futon my mom had to pull out every night to go to bed. Flanking the hallway in an IKEA frame, Dorothea Tanning had dedicated the painting to my mom’s stepmother, “To dear Primrose on her birthday.” Créatures entourées de couleurs. Squiggly ink lines trace the vaguest shape of people in various states of ecstasy, maybe agony. Each figure is outlined by their own wash of color, green or blue, red or yellow or orange. I think of each of them as an occupant of the color they inhabit.

Coming soon from The Ocean State Review.