Dragonfly Painting

A short journey to the beautiful and peaceful island of La Palma (Canary islands) has deepened my resolve and perspective as an artist. At one point, while taking a swim in a pool there, I was accompanied by an elegant deep red dragonfly of a type I had never seen before. It seemed to follow my movements back and forth the pool, examining me as I was examining it. Mysteriously, this work titled 'The Dragonfly', I had made shortly before that encounter on La Palma. Very curvy and abstract, it combines and elaborates upon various elements in my previous creations. Aesthetically, I'm trying to find the sweet spots in the realms between smooth and jagged lines, gradients and carefully articulated colors, space and congestion, abstract and figurative, movement and stillness.. and so on. It's all there, and again, it leaves enough room for interpretation. Still, many people immediately seem to identify a dragonfly in this scene. And once you've seen it, that is what it becomes. I particularly like the idea of a dragonfly being depicted in this work, because like in 'Blue Morpho' (for sale as print), the scene seems to integrate the shape and movement/behaviour of the flying creature into a singular entity. You and the way you walk are one and the same, aren't they? The curved wings become the swirling flight path and vice versa... The dragonfly is incidentally one of my favorite animals. Apart from their obvious beauty and color, I find them very interesting because they are of very sturdy and old evolutionary design. They were among the first winged insects that came into being around 300 million years ago. Also they have amazing flight capabilities.. a great source of inspiration for artists and engineers alike.