Mattia in the lab

I wanted to paint a picture of him because he is so animated. To me the most interesting man on earth.

Kuku Big Bag

So I started making things again... I think the last time I sewed was back in 2nd year university. Now, in my new abode by Arsenal Stadium, I have come back to joy! Kimberly, my housemate has a sewing machine. As though it is mine, I have made it a little home by the kitchen and am forever on this machine to make Kuku Big Bags

Squirrels

Squirrels are cute... young or old!

A New Vision

Over the past month, I have created 2 new paintings. They get their own post because I put them into the Threadneedle Prize. And like all the other competitions, funding, etc that I apply for, I didn't get it. A little discouraged to ever try this ever again... One was 'Who' and the other is the one below

'Misplaced'

The reassuring talk from my friends is that the winners were chosen before the event even began. This is the reality of these things as they say...

Paint

I am grateful and frustrated at the same time. If only I had dedicate my heart, my hands, my love to painting, where would I be now?

Colours

Today, a search through my hard drive took me back to my old life. 

Then a look at 7evener in Dornbirn, Austria.

And Leon... where are you?

A home for a wee bit...

Perhaps it is a calling for the return of colours in my life. Perhaps...

Mad Woman

I began by trying my hand at finesse. It didn't work. Is it my need for it to be perfect, or is it because i find this style a form of perfection. Perfection according to me. Can you see? The hand explored some form of finesse... blah blah.

It is me. 

I like the fact that I am in motion in this artwork. Because motion makes me feel better. When I get on a bus, walking down the street, on my bike, and most of all, on the plane. I am not running away, simply just moving.

Work in progress...

And then...

Mad Man

I called this 'Mad Man'. Is he anything like Don Draper from the 'MAD Men' series? Yes. He sits there with his legs open, shoulders back, in confidence.

He first arrived on my paper canvas on another pensive evening at my beloved. He came from my nightmare and into my waking life without so much of a tap. Appeared like an apparition, he sits there staring out at me, so still, so silent. Every evening watching me drift into somber. It is his silence that scares me, and his power that immobolise me. Why can't he just stop!... Then again, I was the one that created him.

An invite to a beloved kitchen table, studio convert // what colour?

To a beloved man who caught me in his traps by inviting me to his studio (converted kitchen table) to paint.

It was a drunken evening, all I saw was red. Red the colour of the wine he fed me, and the blotches of red that surrounded me bruised bottom as I fell off for the fourth time, off the broken dining room chair.

Catching me by my shoulders, he led me to this damn seat and placed me in amongst his soiree of colours. Mattia is a man of colours. A man who knows how to find the perfect red, the perfect blue, and the perfect black. He sat me on his magic carpet of colour knowledge. We flew along in the swirls of colours, rolling through these dunes, diving down head first, then picking up again just before we hit the bottom.

I sat clueless to this monologue. I have no understanding of this. Every colour that hits my palette ultimately ends up a shade of grey. He argued and argued with me for my denial of this knowledge. He does not believe it. How can I, an artist, a designer, a snake slithering through the world with my eyes wide open not understand colours? Is this what he is talking about?

I am clueless with colour. What is it? Why do they say red goes with blue, or yellow and green is a terrible clash? I never understood this social conventional ideas. 

For me, the red that sits on top of the paint box is always the right red. The next colour that comes alongside my red smear, is the tube of paint that is at closest reach. That is my understanding of colour.

Despite feeling slightly crippled, he has become my beloved.

I started knitting

For two months, I told Mattia that I would knit him a scarf. This turned out a success! It was an electric blue, shy little thing. I curled at the sides, fearing of revealing its scaly back. Oh, how silly!

He was beautiful! I googled through millions and millions of posts to find out how I can get him to come out of its little shell... I tried and tried and had no luck!

Oh alas! This didn't stop me. I then rendered myself a mad knitter and embark on further searches for mittens patterns, and wooly stores in London. And here she comes...!

She is the messy little swirls in my head that is now slowly, but surely becoming my new scarf. 

I kept telling myself that knitting was my therapy. It lets me feel as though I have not wasted my life away because an incredible number of hours have already been devoted to this little beast. Little brown beast around my neck. To keep me almost hidden from the world. God love winter for its massive wears, enabling me to hide myself as I trawl along the streets.