The shadow dancing - artexplosion week 40: express yourself

‘Express yourself’ this is the topic of this weeks #artexplosion contest. Expression as in ‘communicating something to someone’? My thoughts are circulating, searching for the right image to paint, because I constantly express myself. As Watzlawick stated, ‘You cannot not communicate’. My every impulse is communication. The little facial tics, the crying into the wind, the dancing in the night and the writing of my blog. Everything. I do not need to paint (or dance or sing or… to express myself).



But although I am constantly transmitting signals, I can never be sure someone will understand me. Actually, I cannot be sure my communication is always recognised as communication. I will never know if my carefully planned painting, my descriptive text will arouse the same thoughts and emotions in my recipients. I can never be certain that anybody recognises my attempts at communication. Perhaps someone has a glimpse at my newest painting and thinks ‘this is a blotch of paint’ and afterwards turns his back to the painting and wanders away. He will never understand that the blotch is the distorted shadow of me while dancing. He will not understand that I could not convince myself to paint something light and lovely. That my attempts at communication through art very often lead to darkness and to the world behind the mirror. That in its plainness this black portrait of me encompasses all my insecurities: my double chin visible, my risen shoulder and my hunched back. My vainness of wanting to be pretty, healthy, and young. And at the same time, it shows my joy of dancing and of giving a shit about the observing society. I danced in the cellar of a museum in the middle of an exhibition, uninvited. The painting shows the bold colours blooming (sometimes) in my mind and that art can be a means to communicate, to express myself.

But maybe there is only a blotch of paint.



The painting is made with a series of photographies in mind which were taken during a dance improvisation in the Boverie in Liège. I started with a base coat of brownish acrylic paint applied with a middle-sized pallet knife on canvas. The actual portrait I sketched with charcoal on the dried paint and afterwards I filled it with dark brown-black paint. The next step was to paint a hint of the skirting board. To get a straight line I helped myself with masking tape (yes, I know…. cheating….:-D).



The last step was to apply the colourful flecks at the middle of the shadow-portrait. These flecks are old dried up acrylic paint, I peeled from my old palettes (I always do this to use them in new artworks). Now the painting is waiting for its varnish. And I am furiously cleaning my hands :-D