Joker Fanning Playing Cards with a Wide Grin — Print & Oil Painting

Nine cards are loose in the air and the artist has painted the backs of them as carefully as the faces. Two carry a purple lattice, one a green woven check, one a red and white diamond grid; the rest are turned face out and show small printed jesters in red and black, each one drawn at a size where you would need to lean in to see it. The whole top left corner of the canvas is given over to that shower.

A hand holds the remaining deck at chest height, thumb bent back, the top card lifted to display a joker with a bauble staff. The fingers are painted with visible knuckle creases and a slightly grey cast, and they are the most anatomically careful passage in the picture.

The tailoring is the surprise. A purple shirt printed with a fine diamond weave, a green waistcoat with three buttons and a welt pocket, a knotted tie in olive and gold with a repeating leaf motif, all of it rendered with the fabric texture actually described rather than suggested. Somebody in this picture dressed carefully this morning.

Above the collar, none of that care survives. White greasepaint has been applied thickly and has cracked across the forehead and the cheeks; the eyes sit in wide black smears; the mouth is a red scar pulled out to both ears over bared yellow teeth; and the hair is a matted green mass. The head is thrown back mid-laugh and the throat is exposed.

The ground behind is a scraped field of ochre, teal and dull rose with no object in it. Part of our DC Universe collection, next to the same trick reduced to a single card and a card held up against a city skyline.