Two artists, two paintings and one message!

Anna and I have had an opportunity to visit a family yesterday whom we have known for over thirty five years. Their welcome and hospitality refreshed us immensely. 

I noticed two paintings on the walls of their house, done by each of them. Both of them are artists and have a good sense of expressing themselves in colour. In fact most of the paintings on the walls in their home are their creations starting from the time of  their college days.  

 

The following painting by one of them is a good portrayal of a common place experience for young women. The conversation style around the round tables in the painting is what invited my attention. The mood and ambience give a sense of ease mixed with anxiety. The is is the story of many young people. From the formal dress they wear I presumed that the artist was expressing the work place situation, where even the conversation time can have the heaviness of the events at work place.

Even the in between times in the work place can be a continuation of the demands and strains of work place. I perceived the ambience of concerns and unresolved issues well expressed in the faces of the women in the painting. The artist might have had thoughts and dreams as she created this painting, dedicated to the way she perceived the inner world of young women!

The painting below on the wall in the adjacent room, gave another portrayal of a reality that are open before people. Both of them having revisited a retreat centre a few years ago, had a refreshing memory of the month long retreat which they attended at an important phase in their life. During the second visit to the site, they saw themselves as travellers on journey revisiting to renew memories and gains of the earlier experience. They needed time to travel inward to feel the hidden experiences since their first retreat, which needed befriending and expansion. The painter, being a fully occupied professional with leadership responsibilities, in capturing the retreat centre physically on canvas, was giving away a message that life needs interim times of retreat for reflection and renewal. 

 

The first paining is a vivid expression of a market place reality that women face in their work place. It invites our attention to the weariness and tensions associated with life at home or at work place. 

The second painting carries the message of an antidote shared by one, who experienced peace and comfort during a season of reflection and retreat. Life is not just a chronology of events that loosely exist in our inner world. They instead are interlaced to create an optic within, with which we view ourselves, others, and situations. Our lives are therefore being formed by the experiences we go through. 

Therefore regular times of inner quietness each day and seasons of prolonged solitude would be a natural gateway to enter in to the world within where so much happens. The meaning of experiences will become an insight, when we take time to listen inwardly!

Anna and I returned from our visit, refreshed by the gift of messages the paintings communicate.  The paintings are silent, but they communicate and reach us deep at the level of our inner consciousness. We felt grateful for the two artists who while they work observe what happens around them and convey their thoughts and emotions through paintings.  

The common theme of the two paintings done by a husband and wife is also an echo of their personal journey of discovery. How a way of living by rest and reflection is possible amidst all the cares and demands of life at home or work place!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)