Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

Trained at Indiana University (MFA 2006), Eva Marie Warrick embraced a hyperrealist style with a feminist twist. Her human-sized images from the Loved Ones series suggest the intimacy of bed sheets and the domesticity of window coverings and stenciled wallpaper. The old-fashioned floral pattern evokes the natural world and the traditional gift of nosegays (or tussie-mussies) to women by their suitors. Using opaque watercolor—considered a “ladies’ medium” in the nineteenth century—Warrick creates the illusion of backlighting and open space beyond the room’s confines. However, without further context, it is unclear whether the sheet curtain represents a desire for privacy, a sign of poverty, and/or a maternal stand-in.