after finishing blue,
i was curious…
…i wanted to know what would happen if i took the same starting point and changed just one thing.
colour.
and, as i suspected, i found myself stepping into an entirely different emotional landscape.
where blue feels frozen and suspended, red feels hot. alive.
changing the colour altered everything.
as i was painting, my marks became more confident, my energy shifted, and the painting came together with a surprising ease.
there was something incredibly reassuring about the experience…because it reminded me that there is still so much for me to discover. each time i walk into my studio, it feels as though my work is revealing another small piece of itself, and my job is to simply pay attention.
i’ve been thinking about where my fascination with blue and red came from.
i think…it began with the diptych.
the two blue and red figures sit side by side, crying opposing colours. when i painted them, it wasn’t on my mind to make a statement on colour or psychology. i followed instinct, trusting that the paintings knew something i didn’t yet understand.
only afterwards did i begin asking why those colours had appeared, and why they felt so important.
blue and red are a continuation of my curiosity…and i feel as though they’re extending that conversation.
blue makes me think about stillness, transition and those strange periods in life where everything feels suspended. red, on the other hand, carries heat, courage, desire and that unmistakable feeling of being fully alive.
i don’t see them as opposites.
i feel they’re somehow connected — like neighbouring emotional states that we move between throughout our lives. i’m very much interested in the relationship between them, thought i’m yet to find all the words.
one of the greatest gifts painting has given me is permission not to rush towards certainty. i think sometimes we believe we need to understand something before we can express it…
…but perhaps the opposite is true.
by expressing, releasing tension and emotion, understanding follows. i feel like this is true of my process. i create and pause. then in time, understanding follows.
red has given me confidence that there is much more to explore.
i have also recently created large red 36x48 inches, and will talk about this in the weeks to come.
you can view both paintings here befierce.club/gallery
— elise
p.s blue, red, large red, are working titles. the paintings are currently untitled.