This painting is a powerful metaphor for the way reading can transport us into the imaginings of others and to places we may never see and people we will never meet. As I started to bring out the imagery I was thinking about how for me the planning stages of any journey are as pleasurable as the journey itself.
The Reader’s Dream 2015 ©Mary Price 2015
This has been an incredibly inspiring year as I have taken on new challenges in my painting and tried to hone my style.
In ‘the Readers Dream’ I have followed the intuitive process, building a rich background of colours and marks using many tools as well as traditional paint brushes. I have then picked out imagery and developed the story of the central figure.
Close up of marks ©Mary Price 2015
The sky is exploding in a meteor storm with one of the stars landing on the book, perhaps a metaphor here – symbolising that dreams can become a reality and that reading helps us to form those dreams and to plan them and make them happen.
Meteor storm detail 2015 ©Mary Price 2015
She is reading a book with the word dream picked and scratched into the paint and painted on and washed over.
Detail – a page of dreams ©Mary Price 2015
Maybe she is dreaming about her next trip. The headdress which is becoming a trademark just lately is all about the way we have our minds filled with so much – in this case her mind is filled with the colour and tribal references that merge with the meteors in the sky. It represents her imagination.
A headdress of dreams ©Mary Price 2015
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