About

It takes me a few moments to see the girls because they are almost trees. The paintings have caught them in a state of in-between, as if halfway through undressing, mid- metamorphosis. The strictly human world lies discarded, blousy and needless. In Darby Milbrath’s blotched pansy-scapes, grounds are neither fore nor back. She has not flattened the vista, but rather, made the very distant feel prominent. The sky is at hand. Her flowers smear in stratocumulus clouds. Yellow advances, like a storm.
I want to describe Milbrath’s blooming undergrowth as gibbous, to compare the roses to moons, but …