April 19, 2015

Painting the Things We Cannot See. {Original Artwork}

0 Boost Score Belinda Rogers (1,510,185)

975

As a young painter, I used far too much paint.

I sought the wild places, slept by rivers, catching Autumn leaves in my basket; sewing them to trees and denying their fall. The elements which beckoned me were glimpsed but failed to truly emerge.

So I walked, turning amongst a self built labyrinth where questions bred more of themselves, a confusion of things in their thousands.

Colour by colour, tube by tube, failing to find any answer.

The leaves would brown and fade away.

How do I paint the thing I cannot see but know upon seeing?

IMG_8813_2

It was my devotion to Japanese Acupuncture that took me to the foothill of my respite, to a place where those questions of identity finally began to strain against a more permanent force. I could feel it ripping against my structures, and the letting go was painful.

I picked up my cloth, scrubbed at my canvas, stripped back the edges, moved the lines.

The labyrinth was being torn down.

That old cloth never strays far from my hand these days, it is my refuge, sometimes so far as my hope. I am not a landscape painter, yet I paint what I have seen. Colours are rushing past me as I float in my water sky, my place is here and always will be.

I will resist telling of my own secrets dwelling within these pieces, and invite instead the muse of the observer. Do they see a tree? A stone? A sky?

Why does water seem to submerge into form itself and yet, still hold form?

How can a familiarity be felt without memory?

The question must surrender.

The questioning knows itself and questions no more.

Roots - Oil on Canvas 120cm x 120 cm