Project Description
LANDSCAPES COLLECTION
Desert Blooms
This painting represents a quintessential colour field of energy, and conveys an impressionistic feeling the artist has of an experience in the American Southwest. The artist recalls this memory: “One very early morning, while driving through the Powell Lake region, I was privy to a most exquisite sunrise. There were intense shifting shades of colour that engulfed the scenery, and each pillar of rock seemed to take on a light and colour of its own. Suddenly an ominous storm gathered and let go of its precious cargo. Following the storm, the desert came alive with flowered cacti. Lizards were scampering about when a hungry coyote appeared – he paused and glanced at me for what seemed an eternity. Everything in the world seemed right in that incredible moment when the coyote looked me in the eye and scampered off.”
Teyjah actually created this painting at a time when she was feeling discouraged about her work and her career as an artist. She had been comparing herself to another artist who painted in a realistic style, and was even considering quitting. It was during this time that she started to paint this piece, which was entirely brown. She worked with the attitude that it didn’t matter what she did to this paper because she was quitting, and so had nothing to lose.
While painting it, she used a spritzing technique using alcohol as a way to break up the acrylic paints and create an effect. This caused two things – one was the interesting floral textures in the paint, and the other was that she became a little drunk due to the amount of alcohol in the air. The end result was that she liked the painting, which caused her to get re-energized as an artist. This work of art actually changed her mind about quitting. She discovered in doing this painting that her strength is not creating representational works of art, but working more impressionistically, and creating from emotion.
“Working totally out of my head…. totally instinctually and having fun is my best friend. Creating paintings without expectations can be the most freeing. It may have been the spirit of the coyote and how I recalled his look into my soul, or the dizzying effect of the spritzing, but something about this painting made me feel good again”. ‘Desert Bloom’ reminds us of those fleeting moments in life when the world is in perfect harmony and we intimately feel our connection to nature and life.
