Display Room

This did not start as shapes. I sketched your faces. Then I drew the sketch again, more abstract than the last one. Then again from that one, and again from that. My emotional feeling of each person nudging each iteration.

What came out the other end: a round yellow-green mass, a magenta form leaning forward, a shape of sharp edges and points in dark teal, and a blue vessel tipped back on itself. The yellow-green and the magenta share a stand, close enough to touch. The teal has a pedestal to itself. The blue one is the only one whose edge is cut by another.

Every object carries some yellow in it. The colour reflecting off of all the rest.

Colour took as long as shape. I tested through twenty-four paints, cutting each one through a value scale with white to see how it would look when muted.

Then two full studies at nine by twelve before the real one. One of them I liked and did not use.

The paint went on thick. A full 150ml tube of titanium white went into this painting.

You float down an endless hallway. Passing identical doors.

You select one at random. The door struggles open on hinges seized from disuse.

Inside is blindingly bright. The room indescribably large. A floor pushing off into infinity. Meeting a wall which rises to a terminus out of sight.

In the room sit four objects. Supernaturally dense in their vibrancy.

They are turned away. Facing one another, locked in conversation.

Your eyes adjust in time to catch the motion.

Together, all four turn to you.

From out of the canvas, these four will look back out at you. Studying you as you study them.

I gift Display Room to Bernard.

Eight months of work later. Here's the final day of varnishing.

Hope you all enjoy your paintings. Let's catch up soon.