Working title- Alex, Metta, Bronwen and Lacuna , oil on panel, 48''x52'', 2025
The idea of this painting started 10 years ago, from a photo shoot organized by Vancouver photgrapher Alex Waterhouse Hayward. I was there to draw (the model) but ended up taking photos. Model Bronwen took on a pose based on the figure in Balthus' painting The Window, and though I have always been curious about the awkwardness of
Balthus' poses, I was even more of the situation set up by the photographer. What was behind the scene? Or in this case in front.
At the time I was also studying pregnant friend Metta, and the two situations merged in my mind as something to lay out and explore. The layering culminated in a composition that included an archetypal pregnant woman I am calling Lacuna; a gap, or deficiency, which invites something else, something different and unknown to appear. The slightly smaller body of Metta morphs with the archetype. At first my painting around this was more inchoate but finding the confusion distracting I gave the bodies clearer edges. Pregnancy distorts the body and the act of giving birth - one body becoming two, is terrifying, painful and sometimes deadly, but also the most miraculous phenomena. A response to change, compromised bodies, potential loss of abilities and identity is fear and disgust. These themes are at the fore in pregnancies; loss of identity as self becomes a mother, as well as a surrendering to the body, as the hormone driven process of birthing takes over, which when you are in it, leaves behind any social norms or protocols. As I mulled over some of the visceral responses to pregnancy it seemed some of the responses were learned behaviours. In this regard I am curious about the awareness the model has of Metta, who floats towards us in her boat chair. meanwhile the photographer focuses only on the model looking for what he wants to see and present. Though what Alex sees through the camera reflects back at her, Bronwen has other knowledge of her biology that is not present in their exchange. What Metta reflects back at Bronwen is something open ended and on a physical plane.
The chair is a nod to Mary Cassatt's redolent girl children lolling on over stuffed blue chairs. Cassatt's paintings yearn for the intimacy her female counterparts enjoyed with their children, while she, though skilled and talented was kept at a distance in a loveless art world that dismissed women.
The wallpaper trees are inspired by Claude Lorraine sketches. His landscapes in the romantic genre celebrate the power of nature, which in this domestic scene represents the fact of our bodily function. I wonder about how I am bringing the instinctual and physical to my creative research for a Phd, and how will I know I am not deceiving myself. ?
I suggest that in the shift from one area to another, there is a reflecting back, a recognition and a letting go; the breath goes in, there is a stop and then it goes out. In that pulling and pushing is a vacuum and a moment to be there.
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