Grief (2020)
Medium: Acrylic paint, oil pastel, acrylic ink
Canvas/paper type: Cotton canvas
Details:
Cotton traditional style canvas
Size: 35” x 47”
Description: The passing of my little brother has been an indescribable pain. This painting is a raw expression of my inner dialogue around experiencing grief over the past 2 weeks, on this magnitude.
• • •
The creation process of this piece entailed locking myself in my studio, allowing his celebration of life playlist to consume me, and to paint nonstop for hours until I finished.
The initial marks on the canvas are free flow black lines, depicting confusion, emptiness, and lack of care for anything in the past, present, or future. Just pure catharsis.
The abstract black circle was created through closing my eyes and letting my tears flow, without any inhibition. The circle also depicts the thought that all is connected within the universe and the natural cycle of life and death.
The colour black was chosen to represent death.
The subtle white circle over the black circle aims to depict a faint sense of peace through the grieving process. The manner in which this tragedy took place brings a certain level of bizarre peace.
The two splattered points of red paint in the centre of the painting emulate the feeling of immense anger and rage. I grabbed a large amount of watered down red paint in my hand and threw the paint onto the canvas, with tears flowing uncontrollably as I allowed the feeling of anger to permeate through my body.
The precise and crisp geometric squares, lines, and circles illustrate trying to find logic, reasoning, and any sense of such a great loss. Typically this style of art involves me being in my head and working through my inner dialogue, versus the raw expression portions of the piece where I have to be completely immersed and overtaken by pure emotional release and stay out of my head.
The subtle yellow circles aim to convey hints of happiness that feel so wrong to experience when feeling the unbearable pain of loosing a sibling. These moments of happiness are accompanied with immense guilt. However, in remembering his pure soul and the special bond him and I shared, these moments of happiness peaking through this impossible time give a sense of hope for healing.
The royal blue parts of the piece are in rememberance of my little brother and his favourite royal blue tuxedo he would wear all the time. Royal blue has become a way to remember him, to honour him, and to have a piece of him with us through colour.
The grief process for me has been very confusing. I have felt in order to express how much my brother means to me, I needed to constantly be crying, be sad, be angry, be manic.
Instead the grieving process has entailed numbness but also strong bold emotions that are scattered over days. I am begining to realize my own process of grief does not correlate with how much I love my brother. I do not need to be constantly upset in order for others to know the depth of love within our unique relationship. I am learning that everyone has their own way of processing loss and it is not linear. Thus, the minimal colours, shapes, and lines along with a large amount of negative white space articulates my personal experience with grief.
I love you my brother, forever and beyond.
Love always, your Deeds <3
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