Dreamscape With Spirit

My escape into a dreamworld of color, light and movement was always a reverie from my cold homelife. It’s not that my childhood was a tale of horror like many have suffered through. No, I had a privileged life with a horse and dog, piano and ballet lessons, and the finest high school in all of Southern Illinois, according to dad. Even so, my parents and sisters were always arguing, yelling and cussing and a few times it became physical.

 All of them ignored me if I stayed out of the way and quiet. But of course, they ignored one another also, when it came to giving love, kind words or a smile. Everything was always in turmoil, and that scared me.

Time spent with Copper, my first dog, first friend, forever friend; and then later with my gelding Spirit, was what gave my soul nourishment, love, peace, and freedom as well as a deep appreciation for the natural world. Favoring bareback riding, I would sometimes drop his reins and spread my arms as he galloped along. It was exhilarating and perhaps akin to flying.

The figure is nude to enhance the feeling of vulnerability in freedom. I was far too refrained for public nudity, and besides, nude bareback riding– Ouch! I relish that in the making of art, it’s the artist that chooses what to quote from life, and when to be creative with choices. Case in point, Spirit was black.

This painting is an homage to Spirit and how our relationship helped me survive my troubled youth.

“Moody Blues”, my latest painting

I’m really loving this one! I’ve let the painting tell me the story rather than trying to control everything and have it conform to my original notions. This painting is about escape, a reocurring theme of my life; escape from a dysfunctional family, escape from a disappointing marriage, escape from the searing pain of the loss of a daughter, escape from the fear of losing another, escape from social contact. I’ve never fit in. I never learned to communicate my thoughts and feelings in words. I’m a hermit. I accept that. Making art is the only useful thing I can do to contribute to society. Figurative work is where I come alive.

Painting over parts that were from the original idea when the don’t feel right, is necessary to success. If it doesn’t flow, kill it. When I continue freeing myself up to add this texture here and those colors there, letting the line tell the story, them I’m getting into the mystery of how a painting is created. It often leaves the artist wondering, “Now, how did I do that?” During the 4 months I worked on her, slapping on paint, obliterating parts and tweaking weak others, I often had to walk away for days at a time. Then I could come back and sit with her again and feel what she needed. Then I could continue to enhance the mood. You can see the progression in the following images:

More detail images of the finished painting, size and price is on my webpage: www.SharonMatusiak.com/paintings

Evolution

Spending the past 3 years experimenting with pure line and color in paintings and drawings has been a challenge, which I welcomed. Aside from having fun, it has helped me move through a lot of emotional turmoil and grief. Seen here are a few of the highlights of this venture into the unknown.

This learning process has improved all of my work and now in the summer of 2023 I had the urge to paint something figurative again. Finding a sketch I had done years ago from a live model became the inspiration for my first figurative work in more than 25 years.

The sketch:

What I like about the sketch is the line quality and the use of color to define shapes rather than create a realistic image. Images of the completed 4′ x 3′ painting will be featured in my next post, but in the meantime here’s a detail: