This Painting : An Explanation

This painting - it’s an exercise in noticing a thing worth no notice at all, or at least that’s how it feel most days. And yet, much of my youth was devoted to analysing this feeling and tearing it apart. This overwhelming sensation of needing to be loved, and it never feeling like it was returned in the way I so desperately dreamed of. My mind was full of romance and magic, and yet I could never be at the centre of it. I was always on the outside, wondering when it would be my turn and if it would be worth the wait.

This painting - it’s a lifetime of words left unsaid, of love unexplored that grows in secrecy below the surface, planting roots so deep that you’re completely unaware of how or where they are growing. These seeds of potential, these wee crushes, these fragmented interactions that we read too much into, they explode in ways that are unimaginable. It’s all of those nervous feelings wrapped up inside you until you decide that no dream is worth the risk, and you suppress it all - you swallow these fantasies like Tylenol and pray for them to disappear. All of these seemingly insignificant moments, all of these messages that you can’t decipher, it all takes hold of you and your overactive imagination runs wild through the fields of everything that would never be - because you were too scared to speak up. For fear of what? For fear that these feelings would not be reciprocated, that you may potentially be rejected, and then what - your mind will run further still. It always feels as though the risk is not worth it, as though your dreams are a much better place to live out all that could happen, because reality could never live up to what this idea of love meant to you.

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This painting - illustrates all that is happening beneath the surface. Up top, you’re calm and collected, but below is a different story. It’s a narrative of missed opportunities or love squandered because you grew too impatient. It’s pure romance. It’s mystery. It’s magic. It’s all that could have been had you wanted it enough, had you been less afraid, had you believed that you were worth this otherworldly love.

This painting - an exploration of something not really worth exploring, but wow, there is so much beauty to be unearthed in these overlooked places.

This painting - is pure magic to me. It has been a summer long labour of love and when I look at it, if feels like everything. And pictures cannot do it justice. She it a precious piece of me that cannot be appreciated from afar. You need to experience her up-close. There are a lot of secrets woven in there.