This Painting Is A Leaf Painting

This painting of a figure on a field of verdant greens is the first in a series titled ‘Soft Ritual’. ( /Soft Ritual/ is a collection of works inspired by the wild naturalism of the Romantic writers of the 18th and 19th century and the deep transcendentalism of Rothko, coupled with my own penchant for introspection. It is a collection that walks through liminal spaces and asks you to follow along as it meanders, graceless as a fawn, to nowhere at all.) This painting is a leaf. It started as a tiny bud, a single brush stroke. A tender shoot, gasping out of the deep, dark soil to take its first breath. Soaked in hazy sunlight and the soft thunder of spring storms. A part of a whole, but still its own, unique being. The greens of this painting were inspired by a Peony leaf that grew outside my window: the top half is the less pigmented underside while the bottom is a reflection of the lush green face of the leaf. Towards the bottom of the painting, the figure reclines on a bed of deep, mossy greens and browns. This is our conscious self. The part of ourself that contains all the thoughts, feelings, and desires of which we are aware of at any given moment. But above, the cooler, paler greens of the top shimmer with undercurrents of lighter tones, like soft sunlight filtering through the leaf itself. This represents the subconscious - the part that’s less known. It is unexplored terrain: hidden, mysterious. The figure gazes towards her own subconscious, a traveler in the forest of her mind. What will she find there? What will any of us find when when we turn our gaze inward and explore our own hidden depths?