For now I’m calling it an untitled abstruse scene because it was a commission, and the recipient of the artwork has not titled it yet.
(Remember you can click images on my art blog to see them bigger)
This painting was a commission of a personal nature, so I’m going to skip over parts of the symbolism in it, but I will point out the existence of certain elements.
The figure walks a path towards the huge ash tree known as Yggdrasil. This tree reaches to the heavens. There are many smaller roots to this tree which compared to the figure seem large, but the world tree has three huge roots which support it that run deep. One root goes to the well Urðarbrunnr, one to the spring Hvergelmir, and another to the well Mímisbrunnr. The spring is magical and within it live magical things, but our figure holds no fear of those things now. The Yggdrasil sits at the center of the nine realms, so from there, one may journey anywhere. Odin’s ravens fly above. They head in different directions, and those directions tell which is which. I’ve spoken of these ravens recently HERE in a post about another painting. Behind the very surrealistic and dreamy landscape where the tree seems to rise from you will see a mountain range. It is the view of the mountains one finds in the Northwest corner of the USA when chill’n on the Olympic Peninsula. I’ve also included some little evergreen trees to drive that location home. There is even more, but I’m done with that…
So, the painting itself is a blend, as I thought for various reasons I could only portray what I wanted by blending together many styles. Expressionism, impressionism, surrealism, abstraction, and illustrative visuals and techniques all collide on this one which made it an extremely unique bit of work to undertake. Some areas are formed with loose strokes that only imply things, while other things are done with obvious purpose. The entire painting was built in layers so that it would have coherence to it even with the multitude of styles.
I used Acrylic paints throughout and about 20 different brushes. The painting measures 48″ wide x 30″ high on stretched canvas.
Anyways, this was one of those projects that really sucked me in. A lot of thought and feelings went into it’s creation. I’m happy with the outcome.
Prints may be had HERE.
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