The Cover-Up

Eros calls. It's Spring but, today, bitter winds blast the blossoms outside. This time last week, I was prompted by a Stars App, to venture into 'naughtiness'. On went the sunniest colours of fabric paint sinking into a welcoming cotton rag below. My attention shifted as the layers darkened. Possibility flowed - now the sublime, now the furious and now the delighted too. Halfway through, a woman appeared in red to touch her lonely friend, only to be half-consumed by one of two hands (belonging to no one at first), skeletal hands reaching to the light in supplication.

Making this work was visceral, each moment uncovering something. With each brushstroke, different aspects of life were brought together but, in my mind, they also fell apart. When it comes to Erotica, what is sacred and what, defamed? What is masculine if this is feminine, I thought? Archetypes formed, merged and threatened to become stereotypes - naughtiness, an erotic nude of some random woman; masculinity, the God-given light. Somehow this reflects the entrapment of the wild side in life, captured every year as new identities emerge; with it, a spring-like innocence, forgotten; the honour of simply Being, denied.

To call this painting 'The Cover-Up' is right, in today's world. Here, it's easy to muddle identity with truth-telling. Truth in the face of such material becomes disembodied like the charred arms rising out of fire. At least they look hopeful; to me, they are a symbol of these turbulent times.

I covered her lips. An undecided swipe of green cloth or the vague trunk of an elephant now protects her from devilry, or else it provokes you. I wonder whether a mask can protect us from some false identity as much as it can provoke it? Does it not muffle our voices, the whispers and the cries? Or can it protect our freedom and right to privacy in a world gone Google?

If ideas become fixed, thank goodness these meditations will bring us back: our hands, hearth, heart and head return to balance. But, during this meditation, my attention drifted off into association. Something changed. The abstract sense of right and wrong danced before me like a jackal. I still wanted my brushwork to honour the whole truth. My heart smiled but the canvas grew darker.