Reservation by Erika Navarrete
- Title: Reservation
- Artist: Erika Navarrete
- Medium: Oil on panel
- Size: 15"h x 15"w
- Creation date: 2008
- Donor: Gift of the artist
- Campus: Rock Creek
- Location: B2/2 Hallway gallery rm 254
The film director Alfred Hitchcock once pranked his cast and crew by having a sumptuous dinner prepared for them, but despite the delicious taste and smells, everyone lost their appetites because all the food was dyed blue. A similarly disturbing use of color operates in this painting, where all surfaces are lovingly and meticulously rendered, yet are strangely repellent. The knife and carafe are worthy of the best realist painters, but the green shadow on the butter and the putrid color of the chicken would definitely fill one with reservations. "I often pair the figure with food... to address the complexities of fulfillment, restraint, indulgence, desire, denial and mortality,” writes the artist.