Sheila Blake
Memory is a Funny Thing
November 1 - December 1, 2024
Kerr Lake 1968 - Oil on Linen - 21 x 27
Memory is a funny thing. In a way, I’ve been doing these paintings my whole life. I’ve been painting and drawing and living my life, and now they’ve come together. The result is part two of my painted memoir.
My sources are: old black and white photographs, memories and the feelings they trigger. They get louder and louder as I paint, and through the feelings I create a time; a scene that’s alive. As I’m working, details from my past get clearer so that I can paint the books on the shelves as I remember the titles. I want the colors of the air to reverberate the way it did at my fourth birthday party.
I take the freedom to choose the colors and model the space so that they add up to the air in the painting and the feelings of my memory. The worn upholstery, the faces of my family: they become more and more present.
One of the delights and challenges in making these paintings come alive is the choice as an artist to paint objects that I had no idea how to paint – upholstery, radiators, Venetian blinds, a VW van, a Chenille bedspread – and put them into space and light.
I hope that these feelings make the paintings as powerful and relatable as life.
(click image to enlarge)
