Dearest Readers,
This will be the penultimate chapter of Chiaroscuro. It’s a tad longer than usual, so make sure you pour yourself a cuppa or a glass of wine and sit down to take it all in.
If you’re a free subscriber and want to read Chiaroscuro, message me via the button below and I’ll send you a free pass.
A friend and I are still working on bringing you a new publication, The Spicy Chronicles (TSC) which will be ready to launch soon. This publication will bring you exactly what the title suggests – spice with a dash of smut – in both fiction and non-fiction. Let me tell you, we’ve been on the receiving end of some serious escapades and I’m going to share some of the collection of spicy stories I’ve been writing over the last year. We can’t wait to share them with you!
I’ll still be writing my usual articles, essays and meanderings between TSC, but I’m really looking forward to diving into a bowl of hot spicy soup with y’all.
Happy reading.
Joey x
Chapter 15 Recap
Emery wakes to a flood of notifications – her phone buzzing with messages and news articles after she publicly spoke out against Rupert Street and Cliff Hersain, exposing their manipulation of young women in the art world. The weight of what she’s done sinks in as she reads an article framing her as a "once-promising artist," her mother, Jane Steele, reduced to a footnote in the scandal. Messages from friends range from support to warnings, with Natalie cautioning her that the industry will twist the narrative.
Flashing back to her interview with Max at Jackie’s café, Emery recalls finally telling the full story – how Cliff exploited her mother and how Rupert enabled it, leaving Emery to grow up in the aftermath. She confessed her own naivety, realising too late she wasn’t special, but instead just another cautionary tale.
Back in the present, Quentin texts again, asking if she’s okay. Emery is left grappling with doubt and fear, haunted by the voices of the men who wronged her, but knowing there’s no undoing what she’s set in motion. The truth is out and the silence that follows feels heavier than the one she broke.
Chapter 16
The Art Gallery of NSW was humming with the kind of reverent hush that only an international art exhibition could muster. Like a slow-moving tide, the crowd of people ebbed and flowed up the sandstone stairs and around the Corinthian columns, drawn toward the promise of art-like waves to the shore.
While technically, still employed by Street and Co, Quentin had been gifted complimentary tickets to attend Impressionism and Realism from the Musée d'Orsay exhibition. It was all part of the perks of working for a top commercial gallery.
Given the fact that most of these highly acclaimed works of art from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris had never been seen in Australia before – the crowd of people stretched for at least a kilometre down the road.
They cut to the front of the queue, Quentin, grabbing Emery’s hand flashed the security guard his tickets. With a nod, the dark-haired security guard, dressed in black, unclipped a velvet rope that was separating the looming crowd from the Gallery. They slipped through and into the cool of the entrance court.
Emery couldn’t help but recall the last time she’d been in here. The glitz and glamour of the Waldorf Prize opening night. And that run-in with Cliff Hersain. She was so scared of him then. So afraid of the power he wielded. Look at him now. How the mighty Goliath had fallen.
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