THE WORK
Untitled #59 is part of a body of work entitled ‘The Burning’. This body of work explores my inner emotional landscape and inquiry into the direct experience of form (the body, thoughts and emotions) and formlessness (silence, stillness and spaciousness) through daily contemplations and meditations for nearly two years.
With a keen interest to understand the human experience of consciousness I wanted to take the simplicity of a piece of paper, showing up with a brush in hand, and surrender to whatever the moment created. I wanted to just paint and paint and paint and see what would be there at the end of a hundred paintings. So far I’ve painted 70 works, most of which have not been edited, or gone over, but rather completed in one or two sittings, put to the side, moving onto the next. In this way I felt I was better able to stop the mind from jumping in with conceptual ideas of what ‘should’ be on the page, or allowing overt self-criticism.
As the months rolled by I began to see themes emerge. One of them being “how do I express my emotions onto the paper for it to still engage and meet me in some way?” In this way the title ‘the burning’ quietly came into my awareness one day, and the curiosity as the whether it was a burning to understand my internal emotions or a burning to express these into life.
One of the great influences on my work is the book 'Tantra Song' by Franck Andre Jamme, who first exhibited a small selection of Indian sacred works on paper in Paris in 1994. These works were originally produced by Tantric families from Rajasthan for meditation and visualisation where they are left unframed and simply pinned to the walls, usually in a special or "sacred" place in the house. Eventually the piece is discarded or replaced with a new artwork. There is a lovely quality of non-attachment and impermanence to this story which resonates with me.
FRAMING AVAILABLE
This work on paper is listed unframed, however please let me know if you would like a quote for framing. I have a wonderful local framer that offers options with our without glass. I feel this piece would look beautiful in the simplicity of a white, dark or natural light timber frame. The work is on Canson 290 gsm, weighty, mould resistant, professional art paper.
This work can form a triptych with the pieces Untitled #57 and Untitled #58 also featured on Bluethumb here:
https://bluethumb.com.au/melinda-blair-paterson/Artwork/untitled-57-melinda-blair-paterson
https://bluethumb.com.au/melinda-blair-paterson/Artwork/untitled-58-melinda-blair-paterson