For over a decade I worked in an Arts Centre specialising in mental health where I was surrounded by creativity and creative people daily. When this suddenly came to an end I felt lost and uninspired. Redundancy does things to your confidence and emotional state that you wouldn’t expect but the loss was real, raw and painful and two years on I can openly say I still experience those negative feelings from time to time.
The last time I made a serious body of work was back in 2017 – 2018 where I was working with inks, paper and smoke creating several pieces for my Chaos and Order Exhibition. However, painting with acrylics was my first love and I was absorbed by this practice for several years. It dawned on me that I had now completely left painting behind and that a staggering 7 years had passed since I put brush to canvas.
In the last few years I’ve been dabbling in various crafty type projects at home but I found I never really experienced any deep euphoria when I was making. Nothing felt like the same intensity as when I used to paint – that was so much more immersive and cathartic it was unworldly.
I had such an urge to paint again but it had been so long! I was terrified I had forgotten how to paint and worried that I had lost any skill and artistry I had at all. I took the plunge and ordered a couple of large canvases (and some fresh tubes of paint to replace my neglected dried up paint stock). Even that was quite a decision in itself – do I be timid and go small or brave and paint large like I used to?
I watched a few videos of other artists (mainly tutors) working and talking their way through their painting process. One stood out in particular – an American artist Adele Sypesteyn. I could see that she had a passion and worked in a similar way to me, her thought and decision making processes struck a big cord and it gave me the courage to believe I could acheive what I wanted. She made me realise that I really could go back to that unworldy place again and for that I thank her.
Unwrapping the cellophane wrapper off a blank canvas always filled me joy and excitement but this particular canvas was 10 times more emotional as the smell of Gesso combined with plastic gently wafted out it brought back so many memories of highly productive days. I was both excited and filled with in trepidation.
The stages of the painting
Strangely, the first brush strokes were easy and the foundations went on successfully and quickly. It was at this point I got completely stuck and for hours I washed away and rubbed out nearly every mark I put down. I worked through the night determined to reach a point where I felt satisfied to stop but sleep deprivation got the better of me. With fresh eyes in the morning I could see the timid shaky strokes of my efforts so far which I decided (with some encouragement from my partner) to rectify with bolder more confident marks. This felt uneasy and unatural at first as I was still very much lacking in any confidence but with every stroke I forced it grew and felt better and better. I have never tried documenting each stage of a painting before but after a photographer friend of mine said it’s sometimes easier to examine composition from a photo I used these quick snaps to help me reflect on the paintings journey and view my work through a different perspective. I liked how this idea worked and it will probably be something I continue to do – until I feel more confident to finish a piece without any aid.
I am proud of my finished piece as it is an achievement for me on so many different levels – both emotional and practical. It’s interesting that people interpret abstracts in different ways, always seeing something tangible out of nothing. What has emerged for a lot of people, and quite unintentionally created by me, is a screaming head surrounded by calm serene feminine colours. It is interesting that this should be the case as once everyone pointed it out it clearly represented my artists’ angst, expressive frustrations, my mental health and anxieties and ‘what lies beneath’ especially during the global Covid-19 pandemic. I also think it is interesting that others can clearly see something that you can’t, because often you are too close to it – and what I mean by that is your own self and character.