Tenderness [ballerina] 2019

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I made this artwork for an exhibition of the same name: Tenderness.

What is tenderness?

Google gives a definition in two parts: 1. gentleness and kindness; kindliness. 2. sensitivity to pain; soreness.

Tenderness is always both a feeling and the verb.. In order to feel gentleness and kindness, you have to open yourself up. The risk and flipside to opening up is that you also become tender in the other sense - you’ve got more of an ability to feel pain.

And so, my ballerina dances on a tightrope. Open wide to delightful feeling, almost dancing towards it - at the same time aware she could fall and get hurt. But she’s got grace and determination, this woman. She’s not afraid to lean into loving, she ain’t afraid to fall. Because if she does, she’ll get right back up, and any bruises she’s got will have been so worth it, because the feeling of tenderness, of being wide open to feeling, is the best pleasure in the whole damn world.

I made this photograph by first writing the word tenderness on a piece of paper, then placing the glass rectangle paperweight which held the ballerina on top of the paper. I then shot through the glass. I then worked in Photoshop to create the texture , colour and areas of sharpness. The colour red for tenderness is very purposeful. It’s the colour of love and passion, and also of course, of our blood. Our blood is the thing which courses in us, makes us passionate for someone, makes us want to give and receive tenderness. It’s also the thing that feels like it’s spilt when we’re cut deep by the ending of love, which comes to us all in some form or other in a fully lived life.

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In Phoebe’s room during the tenderness project, 2019.

Of course, context is everything. Seen here above Phoebe’s bed during the tenderness project, my ballerina turns into hope and dreams and sweetness. I especially love the wee knitted toy in the bottom of this shot, which is Phoebe’s childhood favourite.

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Framed in a gentle white frame, with archival mounting and museum glass.

The artwork is produced as an exhibition print, A1 [59.4x84.1]cm in size, in a limited edition of 5, plus artist proof. It is shown here in a gentle white frame, with beautiful museum glass.

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Detail

IN L AND B's UNFINISHED BEDROOM

Lay me down with a gentle hand, 2017, in L and B's unfinished bedroom, July 2018

L bought this artwork for her husband, B, for his 50th birthday.  When I was at her home in Wellington the other day, she talked about how she'd wanted to show me the artwork in the finished room [they're in the middle of renovations] but kindly let me in to their bedroom anyway, and let me take photographs, too. 

Instead of being put off by the lack of "done-ness" in the room, my heart skipped a beat.  It just seems so right that this artwork, talking about being laid down with a gentle hand, is situated above the bed in a room which is a work-in-progress in a marriage which is a work in progress, too.  Because all marriages and relationships and lives are, aren't they?  Works in progress. 

The light falling across the bed, light made more beautiful by the contrasting shadow.  The flowers on the nightshade of what I imagine is "her" side of the bed, because she often wears those flowers in her hair.  The pendant made by hand by their lovely 18 year old art-student daughter. 

This room tells their story.  

Silently, it's walls and objects and, yes the artwork,  speak of the life lived here, and the relationship played out.  And not just the "good and perfect and public" parts either.  

This is what the private rooms in our domestic spaces always do: They tell our story. 

Which is exactly why I love having exhibitions in domestic spaces.  Because that is what I want to do with my work.  Stand up and say, 
I am here, 
this is who I am.  
And I want to say it as fully and deeply as I can.  

[ Thanks, L and B for letting me share this. ] 

BTW, there are other prints left in the edition of 5 this artwork, so yeah you could have this artwork too, for your own private space. FYI.