#32 – Dans la tourmente
December 2015
Acrylic on canvas (1m x 1m)
I started this painting during a cold grey December day and I felt pretty much uninspired. I let go of any expectations about making a “pretty” painting which were creeping up and instead I started to experiment which more use of gold and black and white after a very colourful first layer where red was dominating. A cloudy, storm-like background started to emerge.
I continued to explore with gold and grey and sprayed water over the wet paint to create drippings of paint like rain coming down from clouds using my spray bottle and rags. A stormy sky definitely emerged from my musings. Before it dried, I put the canvas on the floor and created swirls with a silicone spatula and chopsticks, which allowed the layer underneath to re-emerge.
The swirls feel to me like a beautiful dancing tree or winding plant skeleton against the winter sky. I let the painting dry for a while and finished it off with splashes of red and black and white paint.
This painting became the first one in a series of more raw paintings, revealing a deeper side of my soul. As I painted this canvas, a flurry of stormy emotions made their way to the surface and I was able to let go a layer of grief and sadness which was hiding behind anger. Contemplating that painting, I felt at one point in the eye of the storm, present with the raw feelings that were coming up.
So I found the perfect title for what I had experienced while painting: “Dans la tourmente” or “In the storm” and is part of my series of paintings Storm.
This painting is also a precursor of a group of 5 paintings (#33-#37) that I created in January 2016 as part of my “Healer” series on which I have written about in this post.
My dear friend and colleague Ivona was touched by ”Dans la Tourmente” and welcomed the finished canvas to decorate one of the walls in her office, as a contrast and companion to another of my paintings, “Outremer vagues mélées”, much more subdued and gentle, on which I have written here.
*** Original painting owned by private collector in Germany *** Available as a limited edition print ***