About the work

Featured in the exhibition ‘An Apparent Brightness’ by Esther Pearl Watson at Maureen Paley: Morena di Luna, Hove (2022), this work is a continuation of Watson’s depictions of surreal landscapes influenced by memories of her flying saucer-building father, Gene, who aspired to influencing NASA with his prototypes. Her father and the nomadic aspects of her childhood inspire her series of ‘memory paintings’ which contain a brief diaristic description inscribed on the corner of each painting.

Watson says ‘It reminds me of how my father emails me descriptions of his own visions of angels. To him they are like a muse that inspires his drawings of flying saucers. I have to believe that what he experiences is real to him, even though I cannot share his experience. The idea of an object existing in one body in space, but on earth in another, is a reoccurring investigation in my works.’

Date and country of birth

1973, DE

Career Highlights

Recent solo exhibitions include A Very Luminous Vision, Vielmetter, Los Angeles (2023), An Apparent Brightness, Maureen Paley: Morena di Luna, Hove (2022), The Magical Mystery Tour Returns, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, (2022), Safer at Home: Pandemic Paintings, The Richmond Center for Visual Arts, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA (2021), Dream Believer, University of Wisconsin, Parkside, Wisconsin, USA (2019) and Mothership, Maureen Paley, London (2019). Her work is held in the collection of Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, CA, USA.