Good and Lovely Home

Good and Lovely Home

The “Good and Lovely” collection brings together a variety of imagery and settings the artist considers some of the biggest attractors or attractions. People, allegiance, enigmatic stories, history … and home, with all its sights and sounds favored familiarity.

Good and Lovely Home is where two of Candace Whittemore Lovely’s famed collections intersect (G&L and Westies) – not only in visuals and subjects, but in heart.

Poetry and Science

The meeting of these two loves creates an endearing scene and makes for a canvas covered in charm as {Max and Hamilton? – stating from memory; needs confirmed} tousle and upturn a moment, a suitcase, a collection, and a single painting which sprang to life.

The magic of this portrayal is not just the canvas itself. The ephemeral encounter with Good and Plenty Home is where the viewer meets some of the truest heart of this artist. When she begins to talk about this piece, she describes the moment before the technique, the connection before the colors, the sentimentality before the style she employs for the work.

As passionate as Lovely is about every piece in her portfolio, her tone shifts to an even more personal space when she talks about the subjects and moments that make her feel at home. You come across this on occasion with the works that work their way into or from her personal homelife. Candace Feeling Candlish on Canvas takes you into the garden she designed and into “hot water,” Waiting for Santa pairs both Westies and her granddaughter lolling in the glee of the season, the nooks of her Nantucket collection bring to life her island home away from home, and the entirety of her Westies collection deliver one of the loves of her life – loves which, in this piece, crash into her Good and Lovely collection with all the grace of a pair of peppy puppies.

Opposite (Colors) Attract 

As with all her contributions within the G&L Collection, Lovely leans heavily if not exclusively into the genre’s palette of black, white, and pink. The general narrative of this set tells the when, how, and why behind its beginnings, its hues, and the subjects she includes, saying:

“Candace Lovely’s Good and Lovely collection was born of a 2001 gallery show featuring ‘the element of attraction, where each painting tells a story in black and white, with a medium hue of pink,’ according to Lovely. The idea and palette were inspired when she was painting one of her many ‘fair women on the shore’ paintings and noticed the combination of the model’s dark hair, black ribbons on a white dress, black dog, and the pink of the umbrella. ‘It reminded me of Good & Plenty™️ candies and how their bright colors made you feel’ (considering the candies themselves, the colors on the box, and the era that incorporated these colors into pop culture).”

“Of all the artist’s plentiful collections, one of the most prolific in her portfolio – and most representative of her personality and palette – is when she leans into her black, white, and pink to pull together a Lovely story.”

The Love Languages of Attraction

Among the subjects chosen as “attractions” within the collection, this is perhaps her most personal, tender, quiet, and unknown to others but loudest in her own heart and home. Instead of icons and star-spangled banners, fame and controversy, big and boisterous imagery made of household names, she brings this one down to a single household, and the private space of a personal moment in her own bedroom with her dear Westies.

In the language of attractions, she chooses for other G&L pieces, and mentioning animals or pets as a primary attraction for people, she refers to them specifically and sentimentally as “my two Westies.” She paints the picture of the moment in words as well as she paints mimicking how, “When I came home, I’m digging in the suitcase to find one thing and then the clothes get scattered and most of the clothes are going to be thrown in the laundry anyway. But my dogs chose to find a place right in the middle of my unpacking.”

They found a place of familiarity and attraction for themselves among her things and sent a message of making their home in the nearness of her. It’s that “space in between” experience, where she has been gone – been traveling, on the road, a distance away – and is now safe at home. That’s the feel, the attraction, she puts lovingly on canvas here for the viewer (the voyeur) to share.

The state of being a voyeur is one of the artist’s many love languages and gifts she gives to the lovers of her art. Good and Lovely Home in fact captures all three of her most prominent approaches to her work: voyeurism, painting in and from the (real life) moment, and attraction (the thesis of the Good and Lovely collection).

Add to those pillars of greatness, her black-white-pink palette of vibration and opposites and this one, somewhat understated piece – an underdog painting if you will, playful pup puns intended – delivers a calling card with all her primary colors of passion.

Voyeur, painting from life, attraction, black/white/pink palettes, Westies/pets, and above all, home. Welcome to the subtle, consistent, vibrating-color-relationships heart of Candace Whittemore Lovely.

 
 
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