I am so excited to continue my blog posts. It has been a while since I had time to sit and think or to tell my story here. I can’t contain myself now. I want to tell everyone about my exhibition of small paintings in Chocoa, a glamorous boutique coffee and chocolate Bistro in Ballymena. And my Cat painting was requested too!
It is time I told a little of the Cat’s evolution. It has taken a decade to find this final cat shape.
The painting began life as part of my thinking process when I was embroiled in an academic venture exploring the alternative language art materials offer to access and to express complex feelings and emotions. The process of painting this was a bit like thinking out loud. It also slowed my thinking and made my confusion and puzzlement visible. I felt vulnerable and insignificant, like a very little fish in a vast unknown ocean.
The painting began life as part of my thinking process when I was embroiled in an academic venture exploring the alternative language art materials offer to access and to express complex feelings and emotions. The process of painting this was a bit like thinking out loud. It also slowed my thinking and made my confusion and puzzlement visible. I felt vulnerable and insignificant, like a very little fish in a vast unknown ocean.
The fact that I had committed myself to the huge task hit me as I looked at the shapes and felt the terror of falling. I drew figures jumping from an aeroplane, a child engrossed in a book, feet taking slow steps forward (a tortoise found a form beneath the toes) and a face emerging from a labyrinth. Over time, as my work led me into strange new territory my interaction with the painting helped me to organise and to clarify my feelings and ideas, even to get inside my own head.
When the academic journey was complete the painting continued to change. Through it I was able to express my experience of the new directions my life was taking. At one point the red tree trunk became a crocodile. The little boy sitting on the platform became the reflection in his eye. During this time I painted lots of images of the crocodile-riding goddess Akhilanda. She is the never-not-broken one. She taught me much about the value of our scars and how although we may feel broken we are always whole. My lessons absorbed I was able to paint over the intense colour and texture and to free myself from the anxieties and expectations of academia. I began to play lightly with shapes and patterns. Ducks and flowers and climbing figures covered the canvas.
The painting sat quietly in my studio for a while as I found myself painting more and more again. One day I added a blue layer. It was a foundation for something but I waited until the image offered itself to me. I had begun to paint small animal portraits and a cat appeared that was simple yet dramatic. Here was the character to pull the whole canvas together. It still wasn’t quite ready to stop me though, until the koi carp appeared amongst the marigolds. The fish provided a visual tension. Like a pool you could now look at multiple layers; glimpses of the bottom, things swimming at various depths and reflections and refractions on the surface. I called it complete.
Go and say hello in Chocoa. The hot chocolate is unbelievable wonderful. I can’t wait to try breakfast!
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