Allow me dip into this real quick before we begin, I find it quite.. eye-opening to see the difference in opinion when it comes to expressive art, specifically the difference between the visual and written forms.
Everybody is happy to view, admire, hang a painting on their wall, blissfully unaware of its content, meaning, purpose.. But once expressed in written form suddenly everybody is offended. Like what did you think it was going to be about Susan it’s a full frontal bare naked blue self-portrait of myself drowning in the depths of the ocean with my hands around my throat. – Rant
I’m pretty sure writing the content of the topics I have tried to visually express over the years is still a form of art, correct me if I’m wrong but the purpose is still the same. What good is my art if you never understood the content?
I’ve never painted about positive subject matters, since my VCE I’ve used art as a way to express myself, things that bothered me, things I’d find hard to address, thoughts that had no conclusion, Art to me is expression, a type of therapy, a way of dealing with all my bottled emotions. I’m not saying I’ve had a lot of bad life experiences because I haven’t. The topics of my early paintings are quite trivial to me now, but I am saying their relevant. To this day I do not believe anybody has gotten the meaning of a single painting I have done and that’s just being real with you.
Here are some examples:
‘Blood, Sweat and Tears’ –
My VCE painting for studio arts (in my opinion not executed greatly) was of a girl and boy walking down a footpath holding hands from an exiting point of view, showing from the shoulder height down (body language) the male figure holding a gun behind his back pointed vaguely in the direction of the female. I’d sewn actual strips of barbed wire to the canvas with drips of blood across the final outcome. This painting was actually to resemble my parents, a love hate relationship that I thought at times in my youth was not built to last.
I painted my high-school boyfriends face after he’d been beaten up really badly and put in hospital. I still remember the day he showed me like it was yesterday.. you know your first love that makes you feel like the world is going to end.. I guess Ifelt like his pain needed to be validated.
I did a whole painting based around this one time I was sitting in the shower with bad period pains, legs crossed, gripping into the right side of my stomach, full frontal vagina, nobody ever questioned my explicitly, this was my bed head for many years. The start of my expressionism via self portraits.
For my final exhibition of art school I put together two paintings the first being a self-portrait another without the face, it was the opening of my exposure, I guess you could say the first glimpse into my soul literally the painting was of myself pulling my skin up as if you were taking a t-shirt off with two hands risen above your head, Ribs exposed, on the outside. The original charcoal drawing I did had a bathroom in the background, you wouldn’t believe it now but this painting was actually about my weight, under-weight. ‘You can see your ribs’ giving into the way others perceived me, questioned me and tried to make me feel. I never actually had a problem I just never really enjoyed food, I’d say if I could live off tofu I would.. never liked eating animals.. still don’t. My mum said I had to pick one meat to eat so I did.. every time my family would eat any meat I’d get a piece of chicken breast instead, it started I wouldn’t eat fish because I cared for the dolphins.. I wouldn’t eat pork, lamb, duck, turkey and guess what I still won’t. I’d only eat beef if it was mince, my mum would make me spaghetti several times a week, every birthday my friends would come over for a lasagna. It’s only until the last couple of years that I’ve come to enjoy steak, but only eye filet because it has no resembling fat and bone.
The second painting ‘fully grown fetus’ is of myself laying naked in the fetal position cupped inside a male hand. I feel like this one is straightforward but I’ll explain it anyway.. the youngest of two.. just finished my first course out of high-school and I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life (let’s be honest I still don’t) the hand resembles my parents still carrying me, which they were, and how fragile to the world I still felt, like I wasn’t ready to be pushed out of the nest.
Events and painting from this point on will take a bit more time to explain..
For matter of opinion –
‘Love this!! So deep emotional and raw, i see so much in your art and this is what first drew me to your silent struggles in the first place’
‘Think you’re asking the wrong person about this’
‘People look for the beauty in art not the meaning behind it generally speaking’
‘Maybe i’m not the best person to ask’
‘That’s very true and right xxx well done’
‘Hate to say it but you’re now doing exactly what you needed to do to be a free person. That’s all on you though and I’m proud of you for making the jump. Keep it up‘
‘I like your painting. And your art. And your blog. And you’
‘So this is the piece to go on the wall with the painting?’
‘It’s like a slap in the face to look beyond the surface and question the motives more so’
Justin Timberlake – Cry Me a River