Daniela Astone

"Oranges #1" realistic still life painting, orange fruit with leaves

2025

An oil painting of a agave blossoms silhouetted against a hazy sky, clouds and blossoms backlit by the sun. Far below, the ocean reflecting white clouds and sun glare. The agave plan...

In the trompe l'oeil panel painting, "Wonder, or the Plane of the Invisible," a comic cut-out of Wonder Woman sits between two spatial planes—the top, very flat plane is cut out in the shape of a plane as a play Wonder Woman's famous "Invisible Plane." The silly way the comic book character would sit in an imaginary seat flying through the air would force the artist to wonder, “how do you represent an invisible plane”. Here, we see a bright blue canvas, sprinkled with glittery paillettes; an outline of an airplane beneath an outline of the word “SKY”, an infantile depiction of the sun made of masking tape, and finally, the hero, Wonder Woman, her comic clipping taped onto the invisible plane. A very believable, naturalist blue sky with puffy white clouds is visible through the letters and the invisible airplane. It feels like we can reach into the invisible plane to find the natural world…yet atop the plane is an old cartoon of the first female superhero. She overlaps the realistic atmosphere, and even casts a shadow onto it. The planet’s orbit is dedicated to the sun, and all living things need the light to survive…yet this most important element is made up of a crude array of tape strips, asymmetrical, and even torn in-half. This sun refers back to Pablo Picasso’s sun...