This piece is the third place winner for the 2022 Cover Art Contest, as judged by ness lee.
THIRD PLACE: Interiors, by Danielle Klebes
“Around the beginning of Covid, I rented a furnished apartment for a few months from a Hemingway-type-artist-man. It had taxidermy of a big horned sheep and a boar mounted on the walls. There was a liquor cabinet that slid to reveal a secret room with stained glass and a big bed. I felt an inexplicable sense of ownership and pride for that apartment. There was something so funny to me about a queer female and her queer friends existing in that space. In my current body of work, I present a variety of intimate interior scenes that were inspired by that apartment. The figures are comfortable enough to be vulnerable–they are lost in thought, often naked, surrounded by objects and community in den-like environments.”
I thought this was such a vibrant and serene piece that gave me a sense of being comfortable in a shared silence, or when bodies are able to be together in vulnerability in the present moment. Being able to see into this moment of such an intimacy, in a space that we can take for granted, reminded me of how important it is to be mindful of the spaces we occupy with ourselves and with each other and how it can be a process to feel a home with yourself in a place that is not yours but yours for now. — Judge Ness Lee
