“Pentimento” by Catherine Moore
She painted over his works because she felt he had spent too much time in his blue period. The disemboweled female forms were barely swathed in bolts of lapis atop ecru. Draped over in wide eyes afraid—primitive empties, effigies of sad spoils. The figures needed their horror broken. These moments buried. Their beauty enriched with sun washed colors. Her own brush was true, as the paintings sold well. It was money she rejoiced in spending. At art auctions, she examined the subterranean canvases for original strokes, while critics praised the rather childishness about his final paintings. How wonderfully derivative it all seemed.
____________________
Share your response to this work, in any form, here
Catherine Moore Artist Statement:
Catherine Moore’s writing has appeared in Tahoma Literary Review, Cider Press
Review, Southampton Review, Caesura, Still: the Journal, The Tishman Review, concīs,
and in various anthologies. She has two chapbook collections (Finishing Line Press and
Kentucky Story Press) with another forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. A Percy
Walker fellow, she won the Southeast Review’s 2014 Poetry Prize and had work included
in “The Best Small Fictions of 2015.” She’s a recipient of a Nashville MetroArts grant.
Catherine earned a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Tampa, and she teaches at
a community college. She’s tweetable @CatPoetic.
