Description
Oil painting on canvas 32x40''
Sometimes the title of a painting comes very early, sometimes it even imposes before any stroke is sketched. There it was the opposite: the painting was completed, standing on the easel for weeks without any good name coming to mind. Then Phenix popped in my head, claiming its obviousness.
The story of that painting began one day of August 2012, a day when I was nervous and confused for many things were going wrong in my head, that I couldn't clearly identify or heal. That day I decided to take a week off, packed my easel and my paints, stopped at a store to buy a fresh canvas, and drove to the mountain. My parents have been owning a small chalet in the Pyrenees since I was a kid.
I have organized my days waking early, going hiking in the woods the mornings, and painting the rest of the day long. After five days in this active seclusion my canvas was painted. ( Well, one should read that it was "covered with paint", which means that the underpainting was done, and that almost no blank was visible, because it took me one year and a half to complete the actual painting nonetheless.)
The painting was about this. Going back to your roots ( childhood ), going back to the earth ( were we're heading at ). Use that fertilizer for growing anew. It has also this verticality that symbolizes the bound between earth, our human nature, and the skies, our spiritual aspirations. (And also there was in it, a house to bury)
Phenix is the mystical creature that came to mind for symbolizing the life circle in which one shines, then falls back to the ground, and seeds that ground to feed one's own rebirth.
