#17 – Transformation
June 2015
Acrylic on canvas (1m x 1m)

Transformation.

This painting has become my lucky star. From the moment that Martin, mon amour, displayed it on the wall of our living room, my other paintings, starting with #8, then #11 and #12, started to make their way to other people’s walls. It’s a symbol of the transformation that I have undertaken in 2015, daring to let my creative self out into the light. Like the butterfly coming out of its chrysalis.

Yes, 2015 has been a wonderful year of inner transformation. I am more myself than I have ever been before. It’s not been a smooth walk in the park. I value every step of the way, stumbling or light-footed. And I’m grateful for having shown up with the support of loved ones.

I am very fond of “Transformation”. It’s the first painting that I started outdoors, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in June 2015, in the public garden in front of our flat. Bare foot in the grass, with my bottles of fluid paint and my spray water bottle in a box, the canvas propped against a cherry tree, a protective cover underneath it, I moved the paint swiftly with a kind of combed tool: hues of red and yellow in the first layer and then green and blue… or was it the other way round?… never mind… I was happy outside, kids playing on the playground a few meters away, running around barefoot as well, the warm summer sun kissing us all.

Transformation work in progress

Then it was time to go home. So I finished it that night at home in my little studio in the winter garden.

When the evening light receded, I had this urge to cover the vivid layers with a thin layer of white, almost like a cocoon wrapping them. The idea of the cocoon emerged as I was brushing the white fluid paint over the first layers. So I stencilled onto this veil a few white butterflies, barely showing up. A sharp tool in each hand, I then made very thin lines into the white paint, adding even more of a cocoon effect, as if these were threads of silk visible in the light.

The black lines and drops seal the painting, with a kind of uncertain, daring presence, light enough not to darken the painting and instead enhance its lightness. Well, this is my perspective on it. Almost like delicate lines in Japanese calligraphy, done with a fine brush.

I left the painting hanging on the wall of the winter garden, with a sense of peace.

A couple of days later, I was travelling to London for business. Upon my return, it was hanging on the wall in the living room. In my home, our home. Visible and welcome. Tears of gratitude. A stepping stone in my transformative journey.