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April 19, 2015

Painting the Things We Cannot See. {Original Artwork}

a symphony in rain jpeg

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?

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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.

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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

What remains are the silhouettes of our projection: Colour. Our place within the other.

The painting has become the observer and the observer has become the painting.

The exchange is silent, ever flowing, dwelling in the somewhere in-between.

A treasured place.

The watcher watches us as we see the leaves fall.

The seer has no birth and so gives birth to thousands.

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Relephant:

30 Quotes to Inspire Creativity & Courage.

 

 

 

Author: Belinda Rogers

Editor: Renée Picard

Images: original paintings via the author  

 

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Belinda Rogers