Tuesday 25 January 2011

Unrequited love ‘the story of the painting’


The basis of this painting is the Peace Lilly pistil.

Upon closer, detailed inspection - the shape and structure provokes in me a thought of something alive and growing with the surface resembling soft skin. I wanted to draw parallels between the structure of the pistil and the breasts of a woman, denoting the sensitive and fragile part of a body.

Red spots increase this impression because blood denotes that the object is alive
The concept could be considered to be love without requite or hope. It is like the continual weeping of your soul, it is like you have been rejected but are still in love. 
I imagine a woman with no milk and no baby to feed and weeping with red tears. 

I like the double meaning effect of this painting and that you could not decide whether these stains and marks from the running paint are painted because they are real and a part of the painting concept or are they simply a media/technical effect and the pistil is not weeping at all.

While I was painting I changed the look of the painting significantly from the initial composition and colour. I think it was a direct influence of my feelings about the subject.




The first version was looking like an exotic fruit, cheerful and sweet. So I washed that out and focused on more gentle colours. 


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