Wednesday, July 20, 2005




Angel

This piece was created in 1998. I had a friend who was just finishing art school, and he was gently mocking my use of bright, intense colours. He made the suggestion (constructively!) that perhaps I was hiding behind my colours.

In response I painted this pared down image. It was actually a very helpful and healthy exercise. I find that I do tend to feel unsatisfied with 'raw' edges and so my work leans toward a very polished look. Digging up this old image has reminded me to try keeping a bit of that edge.

Another reason I posted this image was that I've been thinking about death. Not in a depressed or morbid kind of way, but more along the lines of how we deal with it. We all know that we will die one day. Some find solace in the thought of an afterlife in heaven, others in reincarnation. Some people I've talked to say they want it to be lights out. Darkness. The end. Still others feel that it will be a re-uniting with the universe, a golden source of warmth and power. A friend once told me that her vision of death was being all alone in the vacuum of space, cold stars floating by forever.

I have my own ideas, but looking at this piece from seven years ago, I am struck with the simple peace and cool clarity of an angel walking through a field of flowers.

What Milton wrote as an expression of defiance, I relate in a spirit of possibility:

"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n."

4 comments:

Johnny Newt said...

aaron this is a beautiful work, i'd have to admit this tyle speaks to me a little stronger than your bolder
paintings, but that is just my tatse. I've always loved the sketchy unfinished feel of paintings like this one.
For some reason I realy like the verticale lines on the bottom of the image, a nice touch.

Anonymous said...

"I hold that when a person dies
His soul returns again to earth;
Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise,
Another mother gives him birth.
With sturdier limbs and brighter brain
The old soul takes the road again."
.........
("A Creed" by John Mansfield)

Anonymous said...

Grrr, obviously I meant John Masefield

Aaron Paquette said...

Johnny:

Thank you. I'm trying to keep a more raw look to my work, but I find that I'm stalling, I keep going back and forth and can't seem to complete anything (hence no new images lately). I think I have to relax and allow it to come of it's own accord...not force it into being like a child ripped unready into the universe.

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anonymous:

Reincarnation...

I won't pretend to be wise enough to know the Truth, but I do find comfort in this belief. It is not my own, but I have been proven wrong before, and in this instance, I wouldn't mind one bit.