Tuesday 7 June 2011

A Screaming Mind A Silent Hell

Thinking in pictures, does everyone? I don't know, I know I do...feel emotions in pictures too. A painting like this one, I have spent no time considering composition, lighting, technique...no, an image fills my head and I put it down on canvas. After which I am able to understand what it is I was feeling, and why.


Pearls. Acrylic on canvas.

                           This painting is large and a powerful image, deeply personal as well as selfish. We all experience self pity and I think it is necessary to a point, doing a painting like this helps me to get away from self pity and move on. The Painting is all about consolidating my two great loves......a dream that will never be. Mikey and his needs come first, always. The anxiety, worrying, my mind screaming to find a solution to Mikey's care as an adult. What happens to him when I can no longer care for him, what do i do? I feel so desperate at times I could walk out my front door and stop the first person I see and say "Can you help me? Can you tell me what to do? Can you? No? I'm so alone.. Please will you then just hold my hand for a little while, please?"

Someday, being back where I want to be. Autism allowing no scope for that yet and the viper that is a constant threat, instead of being a helpful harmonious thing it is a venomous snake threatening to take. That, to me, was the so called children's services, an institution designed to be a beacon of hope and help but manage to do the complete opposite and most harm to the most vulnerable.

                     Living in urban jungle, assault to my senses, trash and noise and mean hard coldness. Working my butt off everyday to try and make it work......Loss and despair, and love and ache for family so far away is unrelenting. Africa, the kind of place that gets into your soul and beckons you back often a whisper on a breeze, sometimes a scream in a constant cacophony of sirens. The frayed animal fabric symbolises the decaying state of a country so beautiful but torn apart by greed and corruption.

Beads, orbs, pearls make their way into a lot of my work, these objects symbolise Mikey and my frustration at him having Autism, it plagues my mind and tears my heart into shreds. Mikey is very rarely without a string of beads, usually the plastic kids ones that I have to cut for him so it makes a long string. This is his comfort thing, to drop the beads onto a piece of paper, or cardboard (a flappy in autism talk) for hours and hours on end.

                    I wish I could slip into the coma of complacency that sees most people eke out their existences, not worry about the future but I cannot, I want more, I want a better life for my children and for them I will never give up. Autism has determined and dictated and I hated it at the time this painting was conceived. It is probably the most relevant to my frustration at Autism that I have done to date.

6 comments:

John Salmon said...

A short while back you said something along the lines of, "wishing you could paint without thinking about it". Well it seems like the art gods were smiling down on you when you painted this one. You said, "I have spent no time considering composition, lighting, technique...". If you had spent ages considering the composition, colour scheme, techniques etc. then this painting just wouldn't have turned out how it has. By not thinking too deeply about it you have relied on your feelings and gut instinct to get it just right. I hope you will be able to paint more like this and just let that automatic side of your brain take over and do it. If only we could turn it on at will. It's not that easy.

When I saw this painting in real life I was immediately drawn to it for reasons unknown, but I think the earth colours, the animal markings, the gnarled old tree and the mysterious globes (I know they are pearls now), they all resonated with me in some pecluliar way. I'm in awe of prehistoric cave paintings and your painting seemed to press all the same buttons. It's a shame the image doesn't show the background clearly because there are some very energetic wild flailing brushstrokes which until I heard the story behind this image, I couldn't quite understand, but I can now. Also the size of the painting was a good deal larger than I was expecting.

I really feel you've got something here Samantha. There would be no justice in the world if your determination, drive and talent for art like this were not factors that would help resolve some of the feelings and problems you have described here. I sincerely hope so.

Casdok said...

I was drawn to it to. Fasinating.

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