Darlene Cole

Dance in a Storm (peony reverie)

2025

Childhood, a reoccurring theme in Darlene Cole’s work, is represented by prepubescent girls and boys, engaged in some type of action. Without adult supervision, these activities conf...

Childhood, a reoccurring theme in Darlene Cole’s work, is represented by prepubescent girls and boys, engaged in some type of action. Without adult supervision, these activities confer on Cole’s children an adult-like aura, empowering them. The artist cites Neil Postman’s 1982 book about the decline in innocence in American culture The Disappearance of Childhood as a text that informs her work. In it, Postman argues that communications technology, such as the invention of the television and later, the Internet, contributed to children losing their innocence, thus transforming them into young adults. A source of inspiration for Cole are the works of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of English painters, poets and critics, founded in 1848. They studied nature attentively, employed vivid colours and depicted unconventional-looking women. Just like in Pre-Raphaelite works, the girls in Cole’s paintings embody enigma, distance, and beauty. The past, in general, is a great source of inspiration for the artist. Cole’s cottage, or ‘artist’s retreat’ as she calls it, was built at the beginning of the 20th century. Since she kept all the original furniture and linens intact, the cottage, on the side of a lake, seems to belong to the past. Nature, another omnipresent theme in Cole’s work, is in many works represented by flowers, such as pink David Austin roses...

This large-format interior artwork (150 × 100 cm), painted in oil, reveals the poetry of softness and the light breath of nature. Against a serene sky-blue background, airy pastel pe...

Kristen Santucci's "Spring Peonies" is an original, handmade oil painting that depicts a portrait of three blooming pink peonies. Kristen grew up in Greenbelt, Maryland. She was always creative as a child and had an interest in art, but it wasn’t until she moved to Florida in 1988 and worked as a picture framer that she started painting. Florida’s sunsets...