Christina Leary - Questions About Art

December 10th, 2017
Christina Leary - Questions About Art
This is a painting that hangs in my roommate's bedroom and it is one of my favorite paintings. Her aunt painted it, and something about it I just really love. I’ve met the artist quite a few times and she always says that when she gives her art away it is no longer “her’s” instead it is the art of whoever owns it and “what it means” is entirely up to them. After watching the movie in class I thought that Pollock and Linda had a similar style so today I asked her some questions and this is how she responded:
ME: What type of painter are you?
LINDA: Actually I don't paint anymore but I considered myself an abstract painter but not purely. There was always something recognizable (at least to me!) in my paintings. So I was never a “non-objective” painter. And it always seemed to be about the color and moving the paint around— somewhat painterly.
ME: Tell me about this specific painting.
LINDA: :) I was working with the figure in motion at that time and the figure in relation to its environment.
Although they are short answers I found them to be very telling. For example, like Linda, I find something recognizable in this specific painting. I see a figure on a horse, some birds flying away in the upper right corner, and a large tree in the upper left corner. I’ve never deeply analyzed the painting, that is just what I’ve always seen. She also emphasizes the color and to me the yellow and red is very special, those are two colors I really like. The yellow reminds me of sun and light, of happiness and the red reminds me of strong emotions, passions, pain, blood, etc. There is a little purple in the painting as well and that, in contrast with the yellow, made me think of a dark cloud looming over the figure. Then there is also some green which just makes me think of earth, that this painting is grounded somewhere. Because i have seen the figures this way and the colors in a specific way as well everytime I look at this painting I think of Saul’s conversion to Paul on the way to Damascus, specifically this verse from the bible: “As I made my journey and drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone about me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’” (Acts 22:6-7). The yellow reminds me of God and the red persecution. Also the birds flying away and the purple looming over the figure reminds me of this notion of the very Catholic  “Fear of the Lord,” which is seen as a gift from the Holy Spirit and is put right up there with “fortitude” and “piety.”

I’m reading this painting as a Catholic and Julia is a Catholic but Linda, the artist is not, so although linda asserted that she never assigns a concrete meaning to these paintings I’m wondering at least, what emotions was she feeling when she painted this? Perhaps there is meaning hidden in her subconscious.

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