Nadine Talalla

The Flaming Afternoon, 2021.
Acrylic on Canvas.
40 × 30 cm.

Painter Nadine Talalla (*1980, Australia / Malaysia; Foundation in Chinese Painting and Cultural Studies, Beijing Language & Cultural University; BFA, Painting, at The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, 2004; Masters of Arts Management, The University of Melbourne, 2006) offers an intimate glimpse into a romantic moment in The Flaming Afternoon (2021). The ‘20s-styled subjects of the painting are a pair of queer femme lovers, lighting the ends of their cigarettes together. The unreality of these figures, heightened by their depiction in black-and-white, is juxtaposed with an equally imaginative –– and equally otherworldly –– glowing desert landscape of pink and orange.