Every month I will be sharing the story behind a chosen painting of mine, as I think it would be a great opportunity, (especially for those of you who are interesting in purchasing work) to have a better understanding of why I painted it and where the inspiration came from. For this February month, I have chosen to write about "Invisible" which is actually one of my personal favourites, but surprisingly, went quite unnoticed at my first exhibition. I often find that my favourites are usually nothing special to others, whereas some artwork which I haven't been so happy with, will get all the compliments! This could be because other people only get to see the finished outcome, but I know the full journey that it took to create the piece.
So there it is in the picture above. Unlike most of my paintings which clearly depict a scene, or animal maybe, this painting actually has room for interpretation. Everyone seems to see something different when looking at it, which I find to be really interesting. I'm sure most of you will have picked up on the indication of roses, as well as water. If anyone sees anything different please let me know in the comments below because I would honestly love to know!
There are many reasons why I named the painting "Invisible". An option could be that it's depicting water which is also invisible, or maybe that the roses seem to be drifting away into the background. It's not necessarily clear as to what's going on, which means the viewer has to spend some time looking at it to really understand it. Also that when I painted it, I felt like I was invisible myself, back when the things that I worked so hard to create just got stored away in boxes, unseen. All these points play a part, however the main reason, which I did struggle to decide if I should keep it a secret or not, is this: Before I started the painting, I cut out a bundle of positive words from a collection of magazines. Words that I felt I needed to hear at the time, like "beautiful", "Amazing, "Love", "Potential", "Greatness" etc. I stuck them all down onto the blank canvas, and then continued to just paint over them. They are completely invisible, yet they are still there. There are great things in this world that are invisible, yet are still here.
People who look at this painting have no idea that they are staring at "Love, "Beauty" and "Kindness" and all these encouraging words are now hung on the wall. For me, every time I look at the painting it just makes me smile, because I know what's underneath it all, and it was something that was unplanned, done in the spur of the moment.
So that's February 2019 painting of the month for you. I hope you found this interesting, and if you would like to find out the stories from my other paintings, please sign up to my mailing list which will notify you every time I post!
This work is still available to purchase, so feel free to message me your interest via my website or connect with me on social media. Thanks for reading!
- Sophie