Two of my favorite movies this year, The Invite and The Drama, were also featured in Marina May’s series FramexFrame (The Invite, The Drama), where she looks at what the set design and art, specifically, tell us about the characters in the movies. Part of why I loved these films was because of how fully the filmmakers committed to the worlds they were creating and how every detail was intentional. (It did help that the protagonists in these films, Olivia Wilde’s and Robert Pattinson’s characters, were art lovers.)
So for this edition of art at $500 or under, I thought I would consider the worlds that were created in some of my favorite books I’ve read this year and how each artwork brought me back to a book—through a specific detail or a shared feeling. I promise no major spoilers ahead, just books worth reading and art worth spending time with.
The book: Whistler by Ann Patchett || The art: In a Hurry by Nataliia Martsilenko, $342
Why I picked it: One of the reasons I love Ann Patchett’s writing is that the spaces are all characters in the book. Whistler opens at the Met, where Daphne is reunited with the stepfather she hasn’t seen in 44 years. They return to the museum once more, and the reunion brings back some of her most precious memories of their time together.
Another “character” in the book is the home she shares with her husband, who first lived there with his late wife. The house is filled with rabbit paintings she collected. In some ways they are symbols of the book’s themes of memory and grief.
So when I saw these pale rabbits, I thought of that house right away. This work by Nataliia Martsilenko (aka Martsi), In a Hurry, is part of a series that is an ode to our inner journeys. In describing this work specifically, she shared, “Perhaps it simply helps us notice something that has long been waiting to be encountered.” When I think about the story of Whistler, this idea sums it up perfectly. We carry so many past lives and earlier versions of ourselves, and sometimes they are just waiting for the right moment to come back to the surface.
Behind the paywall: four more pairings inspired by mischievous joy, childhood friendship, resilience, and first love.
