The distraction of full-time education is wearing off and my youngest child has turned 7. I find myself with more space and time to reconsider my experience of life and to make some decisions about how I want to move forwards careerwise. The last 14 years have been outwardly intensive – giving birth to and raising three boys; moving house several times from Hamburg to London to Wales; moving my mother house twice in Cyprus; sitting Bar exams; and undertaking an art degree; etc.
But what about inwardly?
When I was a single woman in my early twenties I had a lot of spare time. I lived alone, away from family and school friends, and was responsible only to myself outside of work hours. Becoming a mother for the first time turned that world inside out and upside down, leaving little energy or time to take care of what was going on inside my heart and mind. But it apparently didn’t matter because the duties of everyday life eventually felt like the meaning of life. Inner life got buried and forgotten.
With my new found space and time, however, I’m loath to get pulled back into that place where outer life completely takes over and connection to the deeper meaning is lost. And at the same time, I would never want to return to the loneliness that marked my early twenties.
Because I strongly desire to go out and find my place in the world as an artist, I feel the need for actively cultivating inner life. I want to achieve inner space so that I don’t feel quite so exposed to and chopped up by a world that feels driven by materialistic dreams that leave no room to contemplate spiritual reality. A world where I wish to feel whole despite everything that works against such a human need.
Where does my painting practice fit in with this mission to reach into the spirit while having my feet planted firmly on earth?
- Across the canvas, I can translate my search for wholeness into painted images. They give me something tangible to work with, mediating between inner and outer;
- The compositions are like mirrors – they show me where I am closing off, letting the light fade, for example – they help guide me toward my inner goals;
- They provide social and cultural context by giving me a reason to engage with society at large as I look for exhibition opportunities and my place in contemporary painting;
- They form the basis of my business allowing me to experience commercial life for better or for worse.
At the moment I’m working on different ways of kickstarting a process, developing techniques and palettes that feel in tune with where I’m at. At the same time as developing the conceptual basis for the work, I’m working towards producing sellable objects.
One of the main objectives with these is to remain open. By this I mean that I want to prevent recognisable objects but I also want to prevent overly solidified forms of any sort. This way of painting runs parallel to cultivating inner space within which I can achieve some sense of freedom.
