March 2024

"Absorbed"

Mixed media on wood; 47x47 cm; 2023

Art can be as deep as the psychological questions which are explored through the layers of paint absorbed into a painting...

or it can be as simple as: "This painting looks interesting to me; it has absorbed my attention."

My newest painting put me in a reflective mood⬇

What to do with a wooden frame?!

Recycled beginnings

I picked up this wooden frame/canvas/what are we calling this? at the Mauerpark Fleamarket, one of my favorite places to visit on a weekend (although I don´t enjoy the haggling process).

This looks nice!

I had no idea what I wanted to do with this wooden piece, but I did want to use the "frame" in the center to frame something, or to fill it with something and maybe cover it with plexiglass (which I think was the initial setup).

I was doodling cartoonish underwater scenes at that time and thought they looked cute in this frame.

Childhood fantasies

I played around with the idea of having the painting seep out and take over the wooden frame. I really liked where this was going but decided that my favorite colors and motif deserved a big canvas (coming soon!). So I scrapped that idea.

Random moment of inspiration

Is this... weird?

I like to get messy when I paint, and up until recently I had to be careful with spills since my art room was actually our living room and my painting table was our dining table. The dishrag you see has been washed several times but acrylic is hard to get out, so it is permanently stained with all the colors I used over the past few years.

I dunno, I kind of love it.

For some reason, I thought it would be interesting to put this messy, permanently stained, seen-it-all dishrag in the wooden frame... and I instantly loved how it looked.

But what does it all mean?

The (possible) meaning(s)

I´ve done some brainstorming about what this painting (sculpture?) could potentially signify and I have a few ideas.

A depiction of how anything can be art, even the mistakes that were wiped up in the process of making "an actual painting".
A commentary on contemporary art, and the sometimes criticized banality and effortlessness of it, labeling it as "not real art".
My personal favorite (obviously) - a reminder of how we are shaped by our individual life experiences, absorbing them into ourselves, making us the colorful, messy and beautiful humans that we are today. I am in a very self-reflective mood, somewhat inspired by reading "One in a Millenial" by Kate Kennedy. I do recommend checking it out!

Does there need to be a meaning?

On the other hand, I have also been contemplating my need to intelectualize my paintings, to give them deeper meaning and to tie each painting to some sort of lesson or psychological discovery.

Yes, some of my paintings started off with exploring a psychological topic. But this particular one did not, I simply liked how the elements coming together looked. It sparked joy, curiosity, excitement and surprise.
And isn´t that also sometimes the purpose of art - to absorb us and spark child-like wonder, reminding us that life is not always all that serious?
Sometimes, the curtains are just f#cking blue.