Jersey-Girl in the Doge’s Palace (Tomato/Muffin)

Acrylic and collage on canvas, 74” x 58”, 2001

Several of my pieces incorporate food imagery in the underlayers. Using weekly sale posters from my local grocery store, I often pasted one with relevant text to the piece as a backdrop and backstory. This poster was for tomatoes. I come from New Jersey where the “Jersey tomatoes” are a favorite (and famed for their intense flavor) summer item from local farms. As a double entendre, I am also making a reference to the offensive slang directed to an attractive woman as “tomato” or “muffin”. This painting’s cellular landscape was painted over in a red/orange tone. This painting is also a reference to travel – how someone like me, a local girl from NJ could go to the ends of the earth (Venice, Italy) to study art history, make lifelong friends, and feel very much at home in a foreign place like the Doge’s Palace one of Venice’s most noted tourist attractions.