I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.
—Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
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This is another new painting that is slated for my annual show, Part of the Pattern, at the Principle Gallery which opens June 3. I call this piece, a 36″ by 12″ canvas, In the Dreamlight. It has, at least to my eye, a contrasting feeling of vague dreaminess along with one of ultra-clarity. Kind of like the feeling of those dreams that I have had that linger with me for years afterward.
I think we may have all had those dreams, those visions that reveal some mystery and spark some sort of inner questioning. I still vividly remember several dreams from my childhood and, much like Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights character Catherine’s words shown above, they have altered the color of my mind.
Often, I find myself flashing back to those dreams, rerunning and experiencing once again portions of them in my present mind. They are often enigmatic and filled with a mystery that begs to be answered. And my mind believes they are answerable if I look long and hard enough.
In some ways I believe that is the purpose of my work– to somehow uncover the answers to these dreamed questions. If the dreams are symbolic, might not the answer be found in a like symbolism?
As it is with all so many things, I don’t know the answer. But this painting reminds me of that feeling, that sense of being so near to the center of the mystery yet never quite being able to truly know the answer.
But maybe if I look once more, I will see what I’m seeking…
Redtree Times 