Velvet and Silk
Harrow Street Gallery · Still life · 2026- Medium
- Oil, in layers
- Support
- Linen and oak panel
- Sizes
- 50 × 70 cm to 70 × 100 cm
- Painted
- January to April 2026
- Shown at
- Harrow Street Gallery
- Available
- Magnolias on Green Cloth
The Port Ellery theater cleared out its wardrobe in January. I came home with a green velvet cloth, a blue silk curtain, and three new paintings.
Cloth is the hardest thing on a still life table. It folds differently every time you touch it, so I pin it to a board and never touch it again.
The magnolias came from a tree behind the library. The garland was built over two weeks, one flower at a time, as each one came into season in a friend’s greenhouse.
The shells in Basket with Shells came from the beach below the studio. They are the only things in the series that did not change while I painted them.
Plates 03 Velvet and Silk · 2026
Velvet drinks light and silk throws it back. The velvet is painted in thin, dark glazes. The silk is one thick stroke of pale blue for each fold, laid down once.
- Cloth
- From a theater wardrobe
- Pins
- About forty, all hidden
“That curtain hung in our theater for thirty years. It has never looked this good.”
One painter, one studio, velvet and silk.
Full credits
Behind the series
- Painted by
- Odile Marrow
- Velvet and silk
- Port Ellery Theater wardrobe
- Greenhouse
- June Abara
- Photography of the works
- Mira Castell
- Shown by
- Harrow Street Gallery
And forty pins that nobody can see.