For me, the best journey meanders with stimulating activity then places to rest. Have you ever hosted a child’s birthday party!? Frenetic keyed-up energy laced with games and sugar then the big couch cozying crash when everyone goes home. Those are extremes! Our lives are works in progress and some of us live with those extremes daily. They become a habit. I prefer to take new risks balanced with allowing recovery time to let the experience sink in.
Many times we seek the culmination as the reward. It’s nice and often memorable! At times, people strive for that, only to feel empty later. I like the culmination to be a memory of the point of the journey that brought you to deep awareness so that later you can reflect and use that point in time to move forward. It becomes the launching point for reflection! What’d I learn from the experience? How do I use this in my life?
In this painting, you’ll notice the movement carrying you up along a central shifting path. Stimulating areas of color, glazes, line and brushwork are balanced by the contrast of calm, soft grays that extend within and hold the powerful energized areas. Like a tapestry, this composition has a warp and weft that brings together the pieces. There is gel medium underneath it all that brings texture that contrasts to the smooth canvas. There are controlled drips and sharper linear lines that move the eye. The painting has many many layers and strategic transparent and opaque glazing add another element of contrast. Letting the layers, movement and contrasts be the source for conveying the many aspects of a journey leading to that climactic moment.
Culmination / 48 x 54 / Acrylic on Canvas
Other paintings can be viewed at The Avenue Gallery, in Victoria, BC
Tagged: acrylic, art, color, design, movement, painting
