CENTRAL REVIEW • SPRING 2020 • 17
Artist Paints 2020 with Her Ear by Liza Gutierrez Tears the nub of flesh with her own nails, raises it to the air and watches the blood pool towards the surface. She begins with splatters, blobs of scarlet stains, then flames like tongues entangled. She scatters black lashes – creatures burning. Shot. She sketches bullet holes across the edges, paints a flood with her bones – white waves of femur and tibia dust, rising like smoke off the canvas. Black cities in the background, structureless, tumbling. She carves SICK with her fingernail over and over and over.