Written by Gayle Ebose - MA Fine Art Painting, Camberwell College of Arts for Walls in Online Places
"It's going well, just that I'm not being as active as I was before, so I feel like baby is not coming anytime soon. Trying to get a bit more active by bouncing on my ball. My sleep pattern is all messed up but maybe that's a good thing..."
That was Glo when I checked in on her asking how pregnancy was going during this time of quarantine, "It's going well". What a response. Beautiful, quiet and attached with honesty. She has always had a calm aura about her, but the baby inside her bought a different kind of radiance; she glows.
A kind play on words for such a time as this. Due date imminent, the human inside her kicking and wiggling, every reason to fuss and complain due to confinement and yet a calm. This is the premise of which most of my work unfolds.
I am interested in finding the divine within the mundane. This is a living room space; she has her exercise ball in the corner of her room and is sitting on a leather box in the centre, she is in the environment of the ordinary. This is also now her living space. Beyond the walls are uncertainties and disease. How will she raise a child in such a climate as this? And yet in this space of questioning, she finds resolve. She is 'present' a word I use to describe a subject who is totally engaged and in ownership of her space and story.
And this is her story; peace within chaos, expectancy surrounded by stillness, the divine with the mundane. It is as if the earth has stopped spinning when really, it is everything within her mind and soul which she brought together to a halt, a surrounding to the sovereignty of God; it's a miracle.
I look for moments such as these when painting portraits. I am interested in how God seems to hold together everything, even the fragile moments of life. What a time to tap into this method of working within my practise even more so with this lockdown in hand?
Walls in Online Places is an online exhibition programme for UAL postgrads to share their work whilst in isolation and practicing social distancing.
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