The Beginning of Life
30"x40" Acrylic on Canvas, 2002

Detail: 

This painting was my first intensional abstract painting.  I had created a computer print that I called Sunflower Sky (which is shown in the other gallery listed under detail for the inside my book) and a relative requested that I paint her something similar to this print.  She bought the canvas and the particular colors of paint she wanted me to use and I began painting.  At first the painting looked like Sunflower Sky's sister but as I continued to paint it completely changed. The images that emeged from my unconscious included yoga poses, embreos and underwater plants and animals.  I named this painting "The Beginning of Life" for all of these reasons.  This painting marks an important turning point in my painting style.

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The Kiss
"32x40" Acrylic on Canvas, 2002

The Kiss was inspired from events in my childhood.  My Aunt Joanne was my first art teacher and she taught me about design.  One of the lessons that she showed me was to fill a page with ambiguous shapes and then color the area between them black.  The shapes can then be colored to create pattern and contrast.  The shapes in my painting are a direct inspiration from these early excercises.  The red is symbolic of sexuality and pueberty.  The white shapes represent myself and the first time that I was ever kissed by a boy.

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My Heart
"32x20" Acrylic on Canvas, 2002

This painting is about color first and then the meaning followed.  The rich thalo green acrylic paint flowed beautifully onto the canvas. What appeared was an organic design that needed more room so, I added the second canvas.  The large shape in the center of the two connected canvases reminds me of the shape of a human heart.  The color is symbolic of the heart chakra and the two canvases work together to complete each other.

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Giggling Vibrations
60"x32" Acrylic on Canvas, 2002

The following work is about color and shape.  I wanted to create a painting of only circles.  This painting is a comparison of the cellular and atomic levels.  In other words, this is a microscopic view of blood and also what I imagine moving electrons look like.  The colors are alive and happy and the circles seem to be spinning or vibrating so called this one, Giggling Vibrations.

The Opening of my Heart
72"x36" Acrylic on Canvas, 2002

This was the largest piece in the group and it ties the works together.  The infinity symbol has blood and cellular symbols like Giggling Vibrations (which I painted after this one).  The black outline of the figures echos the shapes in The Kiss.  The figures are in a yoga pose, which I referenced in The Beginning of Life as well.  The center figure has a streched out version  of the green color and strokes from My Heart and is why I called this The Opening of My Heart.

                                                                                Layla Day, September 13, 2003

 

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