Inspiration can come from the most random of sources!
A few weeks ago I watched Alias Grace, the adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s novel. I was intrigued. I was mesmerized. I was moved.
Because isn’t that what society does? The actions of women are taken and discussed and judged till the truth vanishes and all that remains is a woman pretending to be who you want her to be.
The man interviewing her was severely flawed himself and yet society gave him the task of discovering whether this woman was flawed or not.
Grace Marks became a sort of expert on what the person before her expected her to be. Even when looking at her reflection in the mirror she was able to observe the inflections of expression and wonder whether she was manipulative or innocent. She withdrew so much from herself that she could perceive her own performance even as she performed it. She wove so tightly the truth with the lies that no one knew or cared what the truth had been.
The quote that really shook me was;
‘But underneath that is another feeling, a feeling of being wide-eyed awake and watchful. It’s like being wakened suddenly in the middle of the night, by a hand over your face, and you sit up with your heart going fast, and no one is there. And underneath that is another feeling still, a feeling like being torn open; not like a body of flesh, it is not painful as such, but like a peach; and not even torn open, but ripe and splitting open of its own accord.
And inside the peach there’s a stone.’
The amount of times Grace Marks had been split open and her actions analyzed left her feeling numb; there was no pain associated with the tearing open anymore. Rather she felt like a peach, made to split. And after the abuse and manipulation a society that felt righteous enough to imprison her had put her through, all that was left inside was a stone.
Note: this was another acrylic pour though not a dirty pour. It was my attempt at “influencing” the “form” of the outcome. I created an underpainting using texture paste. And then used ink to add final touches post the pouring. Beyond that, this painting was a conversation between the paint and I.