Image Collection

http://images-1.redbubble.net/img/art/size:large/view:main/1158014-7-two-headed-girl.jpg

http://www.primegallery.ca/dynamic/artwork_display.asp?ArtworkID=2627

http://www.chromaonline.com/var/chroma/storage/images/gallery/atelier_interactive_artists_acrylics/adrian_lockhart/white_bowl/7323-1-eng-AU/white_bowl_lightbox.jpg

The painting of this bowl reminds me of the bowl from the story. The narrator explains how the bowl “seemed to glow no matter what light it was placed in”. This bowl is not “ostentatious” like the bowl in “Janus” and it also gives off the sense of being illuminated. This image also reflects a solitude or a barrenness. The main character Andrea likes to place the bowl alone on furniture but looking deeper into this, it reflects Andrea’s own solitude and emptiness.

This image is a perfect depiction of the story. Here is a woman who is either trapped in a bowl or has become one with the bowl. The main character, like this image, has become somewhat of a prisoner to the bowl and what it represents. She fixates on the bowl which is a displacement of the feelings for her ex-lover. There is also a hugely feminine aspect to the shape of the bowl. If the bowl had a gender, it would be female due to its roundness and closer resemblance to female body and organs over male ones. Andrea also has become one with the bowl. They both share an ordinariness and emptiness.

“Janus” takes its name from a two headed Roman God able to look backward and ahead. Janus, the god of gates, doorways, beginnings and endings was one of the few gods that had no female counterpart. I found a lot of pictures of Janus but I felt that a picture of a two headed female would provide a better depiction of Andrea’s attempt to live her current life with her husband while looking back at the past with her lover. I also like that this painting has the heads side by side. This depicts a more accurate account of Andrea’s situation. She cannot keep looking back while moving ahead but she is living a double life. There is no successful way to juggle these two lives (two heads) and the emptiness it causes is depicted on the faces of these two heads.