I’ve Seen The Future And It’s Okay…

… is a very cryptic opening to a blog, and I’m really sorry, but I haven’t actually seen the future, so I can’t actually tell you how it turns out. It is, however, the title of one of my favourite paintings that I have… well, painted. I’ll pop a photo of it down below for you to peruse.

I’ve Seen The Future, And It’s Okay.

Acrylic Paint on a 15 x 15cm Canvas.

(And it is available here)

(but only if you fight me for it)

This painting is available to buy and cherish forever, and here’s why I almost kept it.

The truth is… I couldn’t tell right now with shallow thinking. So let’s try and figure out why I love this piece when it’s quite a bit different to what I currently create.

I think it comes down to three things: the size of the painting, the way that I created it, and the emotion behind the piece at the time.

First, let’s talk about size. Ladies and gentlemen, I must inform you that size… really does matter :D For the longest time, I only worked on medium sized canvases, ranging from roughly a4 sizes to 40 x 40cm. And this was partly because I thought that larger painting were better and more impactful… but my paintings still had to be small enough to store and move. I don’t drive, and I ain’t carrying a canvas bigger than me to a gallery or collector.

Another reason for bigger canvases is that my creations can be very chaotic and convoluted (but only in the best way!), and this could really overwhelm a smaller canvas. (which could be an interesting experiment for a later date…?)

The turning point for me: I started working in a gallery space in 2022, and the building was big and beautiful and full of amazing artists… but I only had a small space, and half of it was shelves. This limited me to one or two big pieces, and then everything else had to fit the shelf space and smaller price points. So I took the leap and locked in, and bought a bunch of smaller canvases in various sizes in bulk, so that I had no choice but to use them.

I tried my usual chaotic technique - a lot! - and nothing was right. Every mark, fingerprint and brushstroke screamed failure to me. I put the paintbrush down, and I had a cuppa (which fixes most of life’s problems in my opinion) and I had a little think. I was thinking too big. I needed to think smaller, and simplify my process in order to get started. .I knew that less was more, and that I could always add in my more chaotic elements after I had a solid base.

So I picked out my very favourite elements that I loved from previous paintings and started with them. Blocks of colour, instead of mixing the acrylic all higgledy higgledy on the background. Solid shapes such as arches and chunky lines, the opposite of the shaky spirals and flickers of messy brushstrokes, because I knew I could always add those things in later. And in this piece, I actually didn’t add them in later. Because I fell in love with the way that this one was.

The things that I love about this painting?

The big, brilliant purple (‘brilliant purple’ is the name of the paint, which is apt!) chunky arches ae not subtle at all, which is very me. The simple nod to nature that always appears in my abstracts somehow… in this one, its the simple pattern of white brushstrokes that radiate and spiral out from the middle, like layers of petals. The blocks of subtler colours in the background. and those vivid pops of blue!!!

Initially, I was so anxious about tweaking my style after it’d taken so long to find it, but taking that lap really proved to me that learning and growing required experimentation, and that it was a safe and necessary step to take.

The second reason of my attachment to this painting could be the way that I painted it. I used to paint canvases one at a time, which could often be frustrating because I would have to wait for parts of it to dray before I could add more. But because I had smaller canvases and a time crunch (the gallery included me quicker than I expected, so I had about a week and a half to make more than the 3 paintings that I had ready!), I tried a new technique that changed the way I painted completely.

I laid out many canvases at once - between 6 and 10 because I had the space back then - and I worked on them in a series. This ensured two things - that all of the paintings would have the same feel and vibe to them, resulting in them all being the same style, and that I didn’t have to sit around and wait for paint to dry, I could just move onto the next one. This was so much more efficient (which I appreciate even more now that I’m a stay at home mum to a beautiful 1 year old and lack the time to paint as much) and it also meant that my painting muscles didn’t cool down while I had to wait. It kept me in a flow state for longer, and kept me focused and motivated and inspired. I loved almost all of the paintings in this series.

The last reason to love his painting is due to the emotional context assigned to it.

I created this piece during a hard time in my life, where little creativity was being used up. I was working a full time retail job, which left little time for me to paint around, and when I did paint, I was seriously lacking in motivation. I thought that my art journey had come to an end before it had barely began, and the future was looking bleak. Which is hilarious looking back, because if I don’t create something every two days my mood plummets and I implode, so I probably should have just found a new creative hobby, and now I know that often my mental state depends on how much I’ve created recently.

With my emotions at an all time low, something had to change, and so I made time everyday to create, and signed myself up to take part in the gallery, to ensure that I HAD to create. This painting was a turning point for me, and when I looked at it, I saw the future, and I knew everything was okay.

And that’s why I have such a strong attachment to this painting, and while I don’t want to say goodbye to it, I have to trust that someone somewhere also needs the reminder that the future is bright, and that everything will be OKAY.