The Rise
The Story Behind Our Print of The Month
The Rise is one of those paintings where the more you observe and take it in, the more it means. The Rise is my daily reminder of where I’ve been, where I am and where I’m going.
The colours show a rise which for me, were the depths of my despair to my highest peak. It represents the places I had to go and the feelings I had to touch and deal with to eventually be free enough to find euphoria.
The Rise is a journey in colour where each colour marks moments in my life where I faced a choice, to either keep going or give up, and I always chose to keep going however hard it got.
The red is a concoction of pain, the deep-felt feeling of injustice, denial and suffering. This is where you can’t even make sense of the suffering because it feels so intense, it’s almost unbearable to spend too much time in this space. There’s no life here, it’s just pure overwhelm and pain.
The black is the beginning of The Rise, the moment where you have to go from denial to facing yourself. It represents the hard conversations you need to have to rise again. It’s the discomfort, admitting that you can’t do it alone and the realisation that it’s only by truly looking at your life, with your eyes wide open, and feeling all the pain, that you’ll be able to get better. There’s no other way around it. The black is a step forward into more realisation, but it’s not a step out. Although I’m rising, there’s still a great sense of hopelessness and nihilism. What’s the point? As much as the previous pain was torturous, it was comfortable. It was familiar. Drugs were there to numb out the bad and give a sense of self-induced relief that I relied on.
The green is the first dose of excitement for life beyond the pain. It’s a natural high, not an induced one. It’s a high unlike any other, one that exists without the impending shame, blame or hurt. It’s real. It’s not overwhelming or in your face, it’s an excitement for the small moments in life. It’s a space of gratitude that you can feel again.
The blue is pure serenity. It’s interesting to think that it’s always there, available for you. It’s true bliss, something that’s so impossible to feel in the darker times but that’s always there waiting.
I can travel up and down the emotional journey over months, days, hours or even seconds. Perhaps that’s just what being human is, the ability to always be changing and not clinging onto emotions as a sense of identity.
Knowing what true bliss feels like gives me the strength to stay in my emotions and not turn back to quick releases and instant gratification.
If you’d like to know more about about me, The Rise, or my other available pieces, check out my website and follow me on social media.
