'Hummingbird 1'

from the 'Fantasy Land' Series

Original A3 size Watercolour Painting, 

Mounted in an A1 size white Frame

Previously on display at M.A.D.S. Milano, Contemporary Art Gallery, Milan, Italy

This piece is one of the watercolour paintings in a series I call my ‘Fantasy Land’. In which I explore my love and passion of colour, the textures marks, blending and bleeding effects I can create during the physical process of creating. ‘Fantasy Land’ emerged from my subconscious autonomic artistic meditation which I dove into in order to escape during my illness/recovery. Art has and always is my only therapy, my voice, my escape, my fantasy and this is my ‘Fantasy Land’. Parallel to this project I have an art journal which is essentially my diary, my truth, thoughts, emotions, honest, raw, brutal reality. I release all of this in image form and later I can look back at it and articulate how and what it was I was thinking and feeling, but simultaneously I need to escape from the brutal reality, which is how I found my ‘Fantasy Land’ series. My happy place. My alternative reality, with no rules, where anything goes, where my mind does not think, my creativity just takes over. Images appear to me as I draw or paint into the colourful explosions, with no real planning or intentional preconceived or rehearsed compositions. It is just like when you were a child and you lay on the grass with your friends looking up at the clouds, studying the shapes until the forms suddenly start jumping out at you, a dog, a dragon, etc. The creative imagination takes over, ‘Fantasy Land’ unfolds its own imagery, its own magic, its own realm of reality. 

Artwork and poetry in which I have expressed how I feel inside, the things I never tell or admit. The things people don't see or don't realise about invisible illnesses. The emotions I keep locked away, the pain I feel, become a part of 'The Confessions of My Soul' Collection.

‘Hummingbird - 1 - Poem’ 

Poem - From the collection  ‘Confessions of my Soul’ 

My wings are spread, 

But the wind knocks me down, 

I’m struggling to fly, 

Fear pulls me down, 

Philosophy and poetry, 

Examine me, 

So emotionally, 

Who was it, 

I used to be? 

Who was it, 

You used to see? 

Who is it, 

That you say is me? 

Why can't I see, 

That version of me? 

The one everyone else can see? 

I try to change the things in me, 

Which I feel are wrong or damaged in me, 

But what if all those parts of me, 

Make me, 

Me, 

All of me, 

The honest, 

True, 

Real version of me? 

If I kept it all? 

All those parts of me? 

The broken parts of me? 

The – not working so good – parts of me? 

The true, honest, raw, bruised version of me? 

And I learned to accept all of me? 

To appreciate all of me? 

To love all of me, 

Would I soar through the colourful skies again? 

Would I fly high in the notion, 

Of colourful love and creative devotion?