Resilience

I am drawn to the subject of emotional resilience and it is at the centre of my art. I find inspiration all around me, there are resilient and powerful women everywhere I turn, with rich survival stories ready to be told to those who would stop and listen. I love constructing a scene that will piece by piece assist the subject in the telling of her own tale. I want my viewer to put pieces of a puzzle together that Rachael and I are providing, to gather not just a brief moment, but provide clues to her true greater narrative. A tiny detail that causes a closer look- for instance a gentle nod to patience… another tiny nod to survival at all costs. I sat with Rachael and laughed as I was setting up her portrait, yet that is not what is happening here. And as I painted, I couldn’t stop until I had captured her exactly right. I was thinking about the fact that the light and cordial side of us is often the first we offer, and I asked myself, what is the best way to depict without words that this woman is a survivor- not someone beaten down or aggressively clawing at the vestiges of life, but stoic and resilient? My work is an examination of emerging from a well of darkness through calm presence and deep rooted faith.
Like a reborn phoenix emerging from the ashes of a life thrown down a deep well, she stares us down. She is not apologetic, and she makes no excuses. I don’t need the viewer to know what the contents of the well are. Just that it exists, and she has survived it. I wanted to share this part of her with as many people as possible, because we have so much to learn from her resilience.