Spawn
Totally unplanned, at the time setting up my new page for artlife, I finish a painting called Spawn.
This painting had unusual starting point. My first and only painting I have painted from a sketch that was made in Photoshop, a collage of images. I often use photos for reference but I still normally draw my sketches by hand.
The bird(s) is a bird that flew to my window and was disoriented for a while in my balcony and I sat with it making sure it was fine, and of course took pictures before it flew away. Since how often do you get so close to birds. The color changed in the process. And the flower got changed too. In the sketch it was a rose, but it got changed into a waterlily I photographed in local botanical garden. Color is switched to negative. The hand is my hand in a mudra.
This is also my only painting I have painted on a board. I tinkered it myself from mdf board and a wooden frame I sawed, nailed and glued in to the back. I like to tinker with hand tools. And ready made quality boards cost a mf. I will buy a proper board for painting some day, I found a good semi local manufacturer, but first it’s better to try out if board is even something I want to work with. And I do like to tinker, just wish the quality was more refined thats all. The board is primed with rabbit glue gesso, because I paint with egg tempera. (Which is pigments with egg yolk). I always make my canvases from scratch, with rabbit glue gesso. I could not paint onto a plastic like acrylic. I like my materials natural and compostable, and the material for the glue is a byproduct so no animals are killed for the glue alone.
Third unsual thing is that I played around with inks in the beginning so it has small parts that are painted with ink. Gold leaf and colored pencils are something I always use in my paintings, also in this one. I usually call my paintings mixed media paintings for that reason.
I like the rough spots, and that I was able to leave some of the unpolished bits, and play around more than usual. It makes the process very enjoyable when you give yourself permission to try even the silliest ideas.
I really struggled to find the final puzzle pieces. I could’t make sense what the flying balls were because they just wouldn’t... But towards the end when everything else was readyish, I had a moment, a click in my brain if you will, of them connecting to the small bubbles rising from the lily. I understood why I had painted the dots into the small ones. It was of course frog spawn. (Hence the title was then all clear.) Frog is another symbol for transformation, like butterfly. It has phases.
So the big bubbles were like awareness rising from the transformation the spawn represents, as does the composition itself (in hindsight).
Or watchers, witnesses, guides. Whatever. Decide for yourself. Spirits watching bog witch spawning from the depths of black swamp.
Parable, analogy to buddhist analogy of lotus rising from the muddy water.
It’s quite a dark painting. Mind you I was painting this after been glued to my phone watching a livestream of genocide for 2 years so the painting could have also ended up just black entirely.
Considering the backdrop it’s actually kinda positive painting.
There has to be a conscious effort to not let darkness win. But transform it into awareness. It's a doorway.
The catalyst might be a nightmare, but the change has to be intentional decision to go to the other side with integrity. Not hate, or be destroyed by it. Otherwice they’ve won. You failed. You can’t become them, whatever the force is that is washing you over with despair.
Even though hate has certainly been a familiar companion during these last few years, you have to consciously flip it to something more constructive or it will only consume you. And strengthen the very thing you’re against.
This painting took 3 years to finish.
Painting doesn’t take that long. I start something new, maybe hit a wall or pause and then they just lay around for years, unfinished, taking space. Until I get frustarated moving them around in my small quarters and get tired of them looking all dodgy and start working on them again.
I don’t have a studio, so every unfinished painting, especially the larger ones, are visible in my main livingspace (that is half studiospace) and I have to look at them everyday.
Starting to paint again was bit of a struggle. I knew I could finish the painting obviously, and make it work, because I’ve painted before, and I know desperation is part of the process, but every time it felt so laborious I almost gave up. I stalled and complained and had moments where I actually felt like just trashing ALL my unfinished paintings so I could start something entirely new.
I’m relieved it’s finished. Another reason to trust myself and the process. And continue working. It’s all the effort that you have already put in it that feels too valuable to be trashed. Respecting what already is. Maybe there is an idea there somewhere. Just dig it up.
Or just enjoy painting fluffy fox ears.
There were many sweet moments too in painting and especially making new discoveries and applying new ideas is what makes the process so compelling.
I have another unfinished painting from 2021, and then two paintings that already have been in an exhibition at some point, but both have been deconstructed back to painting process because I just wasn’t happy with them. They needed more time.
I’m not allowed to start a new painting until these 3 are finished. But of course I already have a new one in the coming, since self discipline isn’t my forte. In my defence it’s totally different. It’s a japanese hybrid. Paper primed with glue to a board. A new technique. So it doesn’t count, right.
It’s been several years actually since I finished a painting. The last one was 2021. So it’s been a long time since I’ve painted with a proper effort. Back then I had an exhibition I had to prepare for. Now I’m painting for the joy of it. And because I want to have even once in my lifetime NO unfinished paintings demanding my attention in the back of my head.
I only have those 4 paintings plus 2 new unfinished etchings, a drawing that I’m sketching every now and then, and all kinds of ideas for turning my ecoprints into magical devices.
So. Back of my head is full.
Disclaimer: I think artists analyzing their own paintings seems to be in fact forbidden, but I’ve always liked to do it. The joy of not following rules. I think the story or the meaning is as important as the painting. And it’s the most interesting thing to find out what it is. So I’m deliberately leaving the mystique out. One big reason for this is I never get to talk about my paintings with anyone. Having cfs, being introverted, not having artists in my tiny social circle etc. And now that I’m in fact forbidden to have exhibitions where I could possibly discuss art related stuff. Even though I usually didn’t take part in openings and such anyway so.. what ever the reason, I’ve never really talked about my art content/meaning-wise with others and I’m used to writing about it into the void.