Waiting To Meditate X (triptych) – work-in-progress (114" x 46")
As the solo show at Benedictine University show nears (Feb 10 – Kindlon Hall in Lisle, IL) the very thought of nudity looms within me. My son Michael (14) asked me while documenting photographically with a quizzical look: "Why the nude?"
I responded candidly and simply with "Purity!". Let alone the very subject of the painting may seemed confrontational, but it is his mother Roseanne. I've obviously painted her "undressed" while she was fully clothed last summer from our photo session in our backyard.
But back to "purity" – it was coincidental that wife Roseanne started her tai chi and meditations last summer that led me to be intrigued by the very thought of painting her. She obviously no longer waits to meditate but it is still fitting that she becomes the model of my paintings. (making a series).
Michael still befuddled but his curiosity sufficed when I iterated something about ourselves being "disrobed" when we meditated. "Going back to our primordial selves without the frivolities and superficialities". Ok, he was further provoked to think then understood with a simple: "Ah!"
Those heads on the left side of the paintings were actually mannequin heads inspired from Mieke Zuiderweg's (a noted Chicago photographer) living room where I have taken pictures from when I visited her late last year....
It all came together in this composite of a painting...hoping that it won't be too provocatively nude for a Catholic establishment such as Benedictine University. In here, I await also...not to meditate perhaps but to see where this would lead me to.
"Why the nude?" - ah, that question still will be asked again for sure.
Art Curator and Benedictine Art Professor Teresa J. Parker can be reached at: tparker@ben.edu
Details and announcements will be posted here as well as facebook (add Fabie de Silva).
De Silva can also be reached at 773.844.3518 and email: efdesilva@gmail.com
www.fabiedesilva.com
