Translation exhibition.

As part of the group exhibition for the first term titled: Translation I decided to put up a painting, as recently I have been working with oils and I decided to add a new element by adding sand to the painting and a translucent pink which gets affected by the change of light so with external light one would only see the blue of the painting while when the lights of the gallery are on one would see the pink tone of the painting. When I was making it I was thinking about when I was in Sardinia walking on the pink beach at night and suddenly we got hit by a storm that swept through. I liked the unpredictable element, not knowing what would happen but also remembering a good period in my life, when I was enjoying myself. At the moment I am definitely not going through a good period so it’s good to remind oneself of a place where one felt relaxed. A lot of people that saw the painting said that they found it relaxing even if it is about a storm.

At first I thought I was going to put it in the triangle space but then I tried and felt that my painting was getting lost among the largest pieces so I went back to the smaller Gallery and was looking around for a suitable space till I found one between the windows. I didn’t want to put my painting on the main wall; I wanted to do something different so I decided that it would fit perfectly between the windows and near the two works nearby which were quite colourful but different from mine. There were some interesting dynamics going on while setting up. Some students just wanted to set up with student friends of theirs, others just stuck their work in one place and never moved it, other students were discussing in groups how best show their work and kept changing the position of their work but they couldn’t do it entirely because some other students weren’t part of the game and didn’t want to move their work at all; a lot of students were just territorial and I think it was amazing that we were able to mount an exhibition at all. I was glad I found a spot that suited my painting and went well with the other works around it.

In this specific painting I was inspired by the exhibition by Turner that I saw at Tate Britain,by the way he painted storms, and his use of light. At the same time I was concerned with a much darker tone, in this case blue which cannot be read in one way, I tend to immerse myself in my painting and find dark blue deeply calming. Painting relaxes me as I have high anxiety levels and I find that when I am painting I forget everything. I can go back in time or recreate an alternate space where I can breathe, where I can have space, I don’t feel I have this in my daily life. Each painting I create has its own rhythm, space where I can be but the pink adds a hidden sparkle, maybe what am I saying with the painting is that underneath the darkness and the storm there is a light but the light is hidden - you have to look for it.