31/10/2011

Fifty years ago!

Fifty years ago I painted this  (an oil painting on hardboard) ...... I am not a painter, it was something I did at school  - now I work with found objects and in a sense this is a found object much like the slide transparencies that I have been working with! When my father died a few years ago the painting came back to me and has remained wrapped up in storage. It's a strange feeling unlocking things from the past.........
this is a detail

I am wondering where that girl who painted this has gone? I don't remember painting it at all! It must have been from an illustration in a magazine or book! Why the man in a boat? It's a mystery! So it's about things lost and forgotten rather than memory - a kind of mourning for lost youth maybe!
Is this my next project? - I have taken the first step and attempted to clean it up - the background has yellowed considerably during the years it hung in my parent's house (they were both smokers) - the photograph hides the yellowing which is interesting. I'm not sure where I'm going with it yet.
I have propped it up in the studio and will live with it there for a while and see what happens!

2 comments:

Marjojo said...

Just lost my comment, so I'll try again. It seems quite wonderful to me that something you've made all these years can come back to you and seem strange, unknown, with all the implications a found object has: of seeing something as if for the first time, making sense of it, finding connections to yourself. And on top of all that acknowledging how much life is about loss: your father's death, your youth, memories... This could make an amazing new project!

RosieK said...

Thank you Marjojo - your comment is really valuable and has led to further thoughts about this work as a new project