It’s not about Pain-apples. It’s about Joy-Apples!
& it’s about April in September ..
April Bey, (*1987) her art, and I met for the first time in New York City at the Armory Show this early autumn. Her work is pure joy, carries a funny, heartwarming humor, and has its roots in her Bahamian childhood.
She lives and works in L.A. now, California, the state called the „land of milk and honey.“ And pineapples are a symbol of luck.
These pineapples appear in her body of work frequently and in ever-new ways. One with two fruit bodies stacked on top of each other, the lower one large and stately, the smaller one demonstrating the upper body, cute silver balls that are meant to represent arms and legs, or just hands and feet.
A female pineapple with the shape of breasts, another one with sunglasses. And a lady holding two pineapples in the shape of pufferfish in her hand, like the pom-poms of a cheerleader.
Mind you, everything is not painted but made from fabrics, stitched, quilted, flat, and invitingly hilly.
Pineapples with three body parts like a snowman, with a metallic body like a cocktail shaker, and the exotic fruit with eyes, and these cute bellies.
Touch it, stroke it, squeeze it!
Of course, there’s more to see. Have a look at April’s IG.
But what is more wonderful than luck?
And luck for you is that you now know about it and about April, too, who creates textile art and enriches you with joy, even more than in the fairy tale of Golden Marie.
Golden pineapples!
Joy-apples!
All photographs taken from April Bey’s Instagram.