Uncondiotionally 2009
Tittle: Unconditionally
Size: 102×76 cm
Medium: Oil on canvas
Don’t know if you all read on my web biography that recently I have embarked in a deep and personal spiritual journey that has opened a door to the ethereal world of Reiki and crystal healing.
Through meditation and welcoming my Spirit and Angels to guide me through my work I have learned to give Reiki to my paint tubes and canvases before I start a painting.
My intentions are to create more than just a painting, but share a healing experience through the vision of the Divine irradiating a sense of peace and love of nature.
I am not sure if you all seen the film ‘The Secret’ but there is a very interesting part about a Feng Shui consultant working with a painter and how his works become the reality in his life through the law of attraction.
What are your intentions in your creations? Are you attracting what you want into your life through your works? Are you really showing your world and the true inner self?
What do you really want to achieve?
Your true self is how you feel yourself when nobody’s watching. It is where your deepest thoughts live. It is what you ultimately think of yourself, how you treat yourself and what you fear others might see inside you. It is your most native and real personality, your true Spirit!
Once you change the way you feel about yourself and evoke it into your works, the law of attraction will change your life. You are the magnificent creator of your own reality!
Angela,
Your painting has a lovely radiance about it. Maybe it’s related to the way there is high contrast at the bottom of the picture (white dress against dark ground) grading to lower contrast near the top (baby’s skin against the sky). This seems like it might be contrary to the common advice (at least to photographers) to have eye-attracting high contrast at the focus of the picture. But here I think that the eye glancing there momentarily, and then moving to the bright and visually interesting child with halo, gives a delightful vertical rising movement, which of course fits with your feeling here. By the way, I love your paint handling in the background landscape.
From the little I know about The Secret (I haven’t seen the film), there are aspects of it I’ve always believed, such as the idea that in important ways I create my own reality. I think there are other aspects I would find naive. But I believe each person finds (at least, that’s to be hoped) what works for her or him in the many ideas out there in the world. And finding one that is deep and really speaks to you is a great feeling.
Angela:
There always appears to be deeper symbolic levels in your work. For example, is the child held aloft real or imagined? I ask that because the child assumes what I read as a fetal position – perhaps it is yet unborn but occupies a beloved and imaginary place. The presence of doves signifies the Holy Spirit in my mind, and by extension the possibility that we are seeing the Christ Child. Would then the woman be the Virgin Mary, freely expressing a relationship that has traditionally been depicted as more somber? This joy, then, countered by the dead trees in an otherwise verdant setting, pointing to the future crucifixion? Too much? Beside the point? If I got it wrong, then allow me to get it right by saying that this is a lovely painting.
Ying-Yang, black and white, life and death; and the green that we live from.
Beautiful!
Angela,
How to hold onto an intention? This summer, I meant to paint geometric forms of dunes and water. After a good beginning, I was sidetracked by the carnage in Iran and made montages of horror scenes using Reuter’s photos.
These efforts reminded me how, in the early seventies of the last century, I dealt with German social excesses by immersing myself into George Grosz’ art. Was I going to process my current anguish by painting our contemporary (zeitgenoessig in German) sorrow?
No!!! This morning, I went to the beach to study two aspects of a painting in progress that I did not really understand. I both sketched and photographed light and shadows on the bluff as well as ripples in shallow water, churned by the wind. This afternoon, I entered my new knowledge on my painting.
Another good one!
I think the apparent ‘luminosity’ of this painting is enhanced by the yellow in the nimbus around the child. While white is the ‘lightest’ color, the pale yellow has more chromatic energy and links up with not only the light (whitish) areas but also the yellow tint/light in the forest greens — this spreads the apparent luminosity out into the midtones enhancing the overall apparent luminance.
George,
Thanks for your insights, very helpful as I learn about color.
Steve,
Photoshop implements the Lab colorspace internally for everything. Lab is not very intuitive but essentially it has 2 channels.
A Lightness channel:
A dark/light measure of a color is (like a greyscale rendition)
Two color channels
Red Green and Blue Yellow
Like I said it’s not very intuitive but the colors yellow and blue have the lightest and darkest “Lightness” value
Ok, maybe this Chartwill help.
On the color wheel you can see that blue is on the dark side and yellow is the lightest (it’s a 98% value, almost white)
George,
Thanks for the chart. Intuitively I want to separate the idea of a color from its degree of lightness/darkness, but I guess what you’re saying is that they are inherently entangled. I can understand that when I think about yellow vs. blue, but it still seems odd.
George I have learned and study academically that sort of technical knowledge about structuring and colour application and to be honest that is something completely a world apart from when I paint… I always use colour intuitively as I am emotionally and internally driven. The way the colours energetically vibrate and feel is more what I am about. This creates an imprint on the canvas. Just cannot image producing a painting in my style with a technical and calculist mind but it is fascinating to see the way you value it in the materialistic worldly view. Thank you!
Angela, I understand your approach probably better than you think. I always assumed it was intuitive and didn’t mean to suggest anything otherwise. After Steve’s comment I took the time to analyze what was behind his observations from a formal/technical point of view. It has more to do with the previous discussion on Albers than you.
That said, there are a lot of ways to unleash the intuitive including direct practice or rehearsal. Internalized knowledge allows the fruits of non-thinking to energize and manifest our experiences on/in other levels of perception and awareness.
George your comments are wonderful as they teach me to see my own work grounded in a new light, thank you!
Angela,
Your work inspired a wonderful set of comments. I think this is important — maybe not as important as the work coming out of yourself, but still it has something to do with the spirit you are evoking in your painting.