Together We Dance Painting

Dancing in my family is something you do with your kids. It’s fun, it’s playful, it’s a way to expend those little bodies energies before having to sit down quietly for dinner. Relationships are like dancing. It requires both sides to work together. It can be fun & playful. It can also be serious and awkward. It can tell a story. It can play out a conversation & it can depend on the chemistry or history of the relationship to know the ending. As daughter becomes mother, I’ve seen the dance between my mother & I dance. As I watch her interaction with her granddaughters. As I remember my dance with my grandmother. From my LIKE FAMILY collection. My grandmother finally went to her heavenly home earlier in the year - and I saw anew the legacy of Matriarchs as I watched my mother mourn her mother. And I could see the future of my daughters mourning me. In order to navigate the chaos of emotions amongst the logistics of flying overseas & leaving behind my breastfed baby — I saw anew the anchors my motherhood was from a personal perspective as I left my two girls behind to attend the funeral. These ideas of chaos & anchors amongst that ‘mess’ is the core theme of all my works. The mess of colours and marks that I explore with layers of acrylic paint & pen, splattered on the canvas in wild abandon! Plus intuitive movement I like to think of as a dance with the Muse. Once the chaos has reached a tipping point, the search for anchors begins. Compositions & the more left-brain side of my Designer past life comes back to dig through the mess. The spiral shape is the visual anchor, serving as both windows through the ‘past’ (underlying layers) as well as compositional and visual anchors. Just as in life - to find a fulfilled life, one must find the beauty in the mess! With my experience mourning the Matriarch of my maternal family, I wanted to explore how the motherhood experience reflects these themes alongside concepts of time and legacy, with the duality of beauty and mess. Grief and joy. Chaos and structure The past, represented by my grandmother, serves as an anchor as we grieve the loss while also joyfully celebrating her legacy. With my daughters as anchors for the future as they create their stories. And I stand in the present, searching and creating the beauty amongst the chaos. Simultaneously playing and battling the chaos, while holding & grasping for anchors. May these paintings serve as inspiration for you to find your anchors & joy in connection with your family -- whether by blood or choices, family are a spiral of focus that helps us see the beauty in the mess!