msjessica's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the dance i saw the italian last night. it is always a pleasure, nice to catch up and fill one another in on our respective going ons, remembering how closely intertwined we became over such a short period, how invested we both became in one anothers lives, mostly only known by the telling, not by the experiencing. when we were seeing one another he was working on a painting called 'The Dance'. the way he told it, the idea had started to surface in the period between us meeting and us actually giving into knowing one another. very quickly he told me he realised it was me, that he felt that painting had had me in it before he met me. our horned likeness's depicted with hands held - in his mind he had his back to me, teasingly, invitingly, and i was determined to pull his hand back and have him turn to me, he described himself as having a "catch me if you can" glint in his movements. I saw it differently, saw it as him reaching back for me and leading us somewhere. when things ended between us, i drew my own version of it, and in it he has one hoofed hand covering his looking forward eyes while he reaches back for me. i went to him one day to sit in his studio while he worked on it. this was his idea, late one night laying naked on the floor of his lounge room, sweaty and close and vulnerable, he said he wanted to have a day at his house, to work with me sitting in a corner, to be together but seperate. so after i had been away for a week, a week in which we texted constantly and had two very long late night phone conversations, realising that this was heading in a direction neither of us expected, after i returned we took advantage of my few extra days off and had this lovely day together. i got to see how he worked. see the technique of melting the beeswax paint, of applying it with tools, of using a hot iron to work out textures, or to erase something that didn't work. he finished the dance. at least, he finished painting us. reworked it. i am glad for this, that i got to see it. it didn't last long. using the hot iron he erased it and started painting a landscape, buildings. something had changed there, i guess the realisation of his vulnerability. he had spoken previously about the censorship that happens in his work, painting on these giant man-sized panels, being a known artist, he had some time ago stopped truly painting for himself and instead painting for shows, for galleries, for buyers. a few weeks passed, and things ended between us. it was too much too soon for him, and i should have seen that coming when he erased our story that day right in front of my eyes. over the last couple of months, now that we talk again after the initial heartache and anger have scabbed over, i always ask about The Dance and what it has evolved to. Last time he showed me, it was his lone horned likeness figure, but the colours around him were brighter than any of his other work. blues and greens only just shining through in the space around him. doesn't take much to figure that one out. but as we were talking over the last week, he mentioned it had continued to evolve and maybe was somewhere near finished. we met last night, firstly accidentally thrown into a social situation with some old friends of his, some australian rock legends, and a man i'd danced with once at a Harry Howard gig (who i have had that sort of secret stranger love you can get for someone that you see on the tram every day, watching their shaking hands unwrap the same medication you take). when we were finally alone, having left the group and gone somewhere for dinner, within moments of sitting down and sorting out menu's etc, he pulled out his phone and said 'i can show you the painting you've been wanting to see'. it has completely changed, it is now purely abstract, how his work used to be, but while there is still a darkness to it there are neon greens and pinks shining through, these shocks of brightness. it is a big departure for him, not colours i have seen in any of his work before. i noted this, and it puzzled me, but i didn't think too much on it while we ate and talked. but later, maybe it was last night in bed, or while i slept, or this morning when i woke, i realised the colours are so familiar - the bright green of the dress i wore the first time he cooked me dinner in his home, probably the same one that was crumpled on the floor when he told me he wanted to paint with me there. and then the bright pink of the dress i wore on THAT day, when he teased our circumstance out of blacks and greys and found it too confronting to see. so whether i'm imagining it or not, whether it's concious on his behalf or not.... i think i am still there, in that panel, that it is mine. and i love that. they say if a writer falls for you, you will live forever - and while in the beginning i thought the same must be said of a painter, having then being witness to how quickly paintings can come and be destroyed, i wavered in that a little.. but i think there is a lesson here that he tried to teach me in the very beginning - that paintings are never just what you see on the surface, that they have many evolutions and it is what's hidden underneath the final product that really give it its life. 3:49 p.m. - 2015-10-04 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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