“Rêverie” in retrospect (Part One)

I’m not sure how to begin talking about my recent exhibit, so first I’d like to say THANK YOU to all those who made time to drop by, not just during the opening night on December 12, but over the rest of the exhibit period. (This one ran for a month, and we took down the pieces just last Thursday, January 12.) I’d also like to mention how incredibly supportive Kitch’ Café has been, and how honored I am to be the first person to exhibit in their shop.

I mentioned before how incredibly difficult and challenging it was to mount this exhibit. It really felt like a whole year, when in reality it only took about seven months. In the beginning, I envisioned a whole collection inspired by my two obsessions at the time (well, they still kinda are)–portraits, and French pastry (macarons, to be specific). To merge these two loves, I imagined the “Macaron Girls,” where a macaron flavor got personified, in a zodiac-sign kind of way.

Unfortunately, after completing the fourth piece (photo above, farthest left), I got exhausted, bored, and stuck. After taking a break, I changed course–not abandoning my French-inspired state of mind–and allowed myself to explore other subjects.

Having recently completed some background illustration work for Candy magazine, I was inspired to produce “Kitch’ Café in Paris” (above left, and shared here). I wanted to take a local café to Paris, instead of just painting a French cafe per se. Still, soon after, I couldn’t help but pay tribute to famed French patisserie Ladurée (not in this post, but shared here).

These last three pieces (titled, “Cloud & Cream,” “Blush & Bloom,” and “Ribbons & Roses”) were a surprise even to me. I’d already completed seven pieces, but I forced myself to come up with three more, if only to make a total of ten. I finished these in just under a week–right before the scheduled exhibit date!

Yet, if you were to ask me, these are my favorites of the bunch. It might be that I finally understood the medium better (I used higher quality, Arches paper here, too). It might have been getting a certain color palette right, and the happiness I felt doing intentional, cloudy washes. It was probably these, breaking free from expectations, and finding my groove after being steeped in so much internal doubt. They precisely express who I am at this point, and how I want people to perceive my work. To me, they represent that moment when an artist successfully marries obsession with self-awareness.

Tagged as: exhibit, french, kitch café, painting, portrait, watercolor