The Beginning of my Abstract Exploration
I have never been that interested in realism, more drawn to the movement and colors of impressionists and expressionists. As a young artist in classes in school and camps we were taught traditionally, still lives, landscapes, observational studies. All immensely important foundations to have. In middle school I started exploring colors through palette knife paintings of landscapes but always returned to realism as that was what was expected. In highschool I started to branch out exploring surrealism and a bit of abstract. My first abstracts really started in 2020. They were explorations with no real intention just experimenting with different tools and paint textures. Slowly I started to explore emotion and memory.
Then my world started to shift, I experienced a transformative moment where I met my higher self and unlocked this path to healing that I had never seen or even knew I needed. The world started to go into lockdown and I could no longer find inspiration from the outside world, I had to go inward.
At this time I was going to therapy and coming to terms with, and getting treatment for, my PTSD diagnosis. This was an immensely painful yet transformative time. I had so many emotions and memories flowing within me that needed to get out. So I began to put it in a canvas. And that’s where this exploration really began.
A lot of my abstract works begin with a feeling, I associate every color and every human being with a color, a distinct visual representation of their energetic signature. I intuitively pick colors to match up with those emotions and then let my subconscious guide me in the movement on the canvas. Often times I go in with an emotion, other times the painting reveals to me what I am feeling when things feel to muddy and confused. Funnily enough, I struggle with words and putting into words the deep emotions I feel, so abstract art was my way of representing all of that and of creating my own world.
The series first began with The Wonder of Wander a brilliant blue and white piece with wandering figures. I didn’t really know the world I was entering into when I started this piece, it was just a curious exploration and I wanted to represent the beginning of my spiritual journey. This painting represents the emergence onto this path and into this journey and how I felt lost and like I needed to find myself and connect with my spirit guides.
The Wonder of Wander
Nightmare is an intense painting using only red and black. At this time I was experiencing intense and overwhelming nightmares and flashbacks, I felt so overwhelmed and suffocated by what I was feeling so I brought it to the canvas. It almost feels like the inverse of the wonder of wander, from day to night.
Nightmare
Storm is one of my greatest loves. I painted it in the evening as the sunset. I felt like I was at the eclipse, the climax, the crescendo of my emotions and healing journey, where all of the bad was coming up and begging to be released and I was fighting my way through the barrage of emotions and intensity. Using the primary color palette I created a surge, a representation of a storm and immense waves crashing in and caving you in.
Storm
Tranquility is a piece of peace, of the calm of the water after a storm when everything feels brighter and you take for granted where you are at int he present moment and feel triumphant for weathering the storm. It is a painting of calm of peace and of relinquishment and admittance that the worst is behind and now I can truly feel peace.
Dew is the representation of the emergence after a storm, in the cool morning light when the dew drops are sitting on the grass and the last drips of rain run down your window. It is the pure exhaustion you feel that leads to the pure tranquility of peace as you take in the fact that it is over.
Dew
Forest is a representation of the peace and wonder I found through nature. While its colors are definitely atypical from what would be found in a forest, the colors are meant to elicit memories of the wonder of magic found within the forest, how the gravity seems to shift and the belief of magic comes to life.
Fantasy is a connection to the memory and magic of childhood, the belief in magic, of the make believe, of the worlds we could create from imagination. The softness and innocence and pure joy. This was my desperate wish to connect with that magic again and to align me with that joy. The softness and stars and drips create a soft magical like energy.
The final piece, pathways is a representation of the closing of this initial journey, I had gone through the first process of healing and was now embarking on an entirely new journey, applying and going to art school. I felt the infinite threads of possibility and abundance before me and was filled with so much hope and wanted to represent that within the piece.
Pathways
These paintings are really the foundation of the work I do now, I consider this to be the original founding series. Abstract painting and expression has set me free, it has allowed me to convey the depths of my feelings in a way that feels safe and clear. I don’t know a better way to share my soul with the world than through these paintings.
Thank you so deeply for reading the story behind these works, there is so much more to say, but one day I hope that will be in a book. Thank you for supporting me on this journey and I would absolutely love to hear what you think of these works and what you connect to.
