This is part of the ‘Black Rose Project’ which started out as a birthday gift for someone special, but took on a meaning of its own. One of the things I wanted to explore is how disruptive or destructive we can be in rendering the natural world and and still manage to convey its beauty and essence. On the flip side, look how tyrannical nature can be in dictating what the artist paints!
I realize the black rose is somewhat funereal for a birthday, but I liked the contrast between the heavy black square tiles and the lightness of the pen and ink drawings. Each drawing is part of a rose(s) which I cut into smaller pieces. I don’t think you need to know this in order to feel the tension between the two types of tiles, but it partially explains the origins of the painting’s title.
Shortly after completing this project, I read an article about the actress and film director Jodie Foster in which she said she very much wanted to call her own (and no one else’s) the experiences she makes and, at the same time, she desperately wanted to share those experiences with others. The impulse to withdraw and share are contained in the same mind at the same moment. I think this may be what the painting is really about.
FYI: There are two other pieces in the Black Rose series and a fourth standalone Black Rose.
