Living in the shadowlands.
Today, I have understood that a very particular cycle has ended and a new cycle is yet again beginning; with my art, with my life and with my work. I came across these small forgotten still life oil paintings in my google drive today - and was surprised by the softness of the light and shadows and particularly touched by the gentle quality of the painting. In 2018 and 2019, I had found what I thought was going to be a permanant home, following a long period of homelessness and sofa surfing with my daughter - and I was in love. I know that I am truly my self, when I am painting. It is something like a child singing to his or herself whilst playing. It is the act of painting that completes me. So I was both pleased and saddened to find photographs of these lost paintings as they represented a love now lost and with it an almost forgotten sense of peace and innocence.
I also noticed while scrolling through my photographs my preoccupation with shadows. There were so many of them. Was it the sunlight I was capturing or was I feeling perhaps that crossover from darkness into light that comes with having a safe place to call home. Sudden and unexpected displacement has been a reoccuring theme throughout my life. Does this explain my renewed preoccupation with shadows in the series of chair paintings that have sprung up? Am I feeling unsettled again, preparing for a displacement? I have to admit that there is a tinge of anxiety and mild panic hovering. The uncertainties in the world and in our own country are trickling down and affecting the everyday lives and actions in our society. Am I feeling a growing sense of change, whether temporary or permanent - who knows. War and violence is surely not the only response to disagreement in this, the twenty-first century. I do not have the answers and so I paint - for as long as I can paint and for as long as I have a place and space in which to paint. Why? Because I still can. And in these times, that, in my humble opinion is a profound a response to that question as any.
