Can time stand still? Often, we wish it would stand still so that we can relish a particular moment and center our emotions on, for example, the beauty surrounding us. Time does not stand still but we can slow it down for ourselves by resolving to resist the constant bombardment of the overwhelming choices available to us. We can shut out the constant, disruptive voices of newscasters, my-view-casters, gossip-mongers,“ experts” and their “expertise”. We can at least, try to slow down our own personal time.
Original Painting: When Time Stood Still
By Ellen Palestrant
When I paint, I abandon myself to the intuitive process and enter a state of uncensored discovery. I am simply present in the moment. I have disconnected from the ongoing stimuli, from the many confusing perspectives and, instead, I spend time with myself, quite seamlessly, entering my own imagination. I enter a world of fantasy – my world – and for me, disappearing into the act of creating, slows down the flow of my own time clock.
My painting “When Time Stood Still”, symbolizes for me, a period of quietness and less choices. It’s a fantastical world which transcends the one of the ever-evolving, unsettling future where time never stands still. When I paint, I slow down time, I stop it – well, almost. I disconnect from all external noise for a while.
For the painting, I chose, largely, monochromatic colors and used a diversity of texture rather than a diversity of color to depict the feeling of stillness that I wanted to evoke. Monochrome need not be only monotones or monotonous. Artists might use monochrome paintings to show how light and color can create shapes and even subject matter. For such artists, the medium (saturated with one color) is often the subject in itself. Their one-color paintings are, in a way, their homage to that particular color. What does monochrome mean? In Ancient Greek, “monochromes” meant “having one color. One color paintings can, however, allow for an artist to explore and examine in-depth, the variety within a single color.
With the painting When Time Stood Still. I not only explored the variety within a single color, but I also introduced a blend of muted but contrasting colors, thus adding additional interest, contrast, and liveliness to the artwork. Within an almost monochromatic painting, I therefore, incorporated peepholes into color worlds and in doing so, I combined the steady, regularized monochrome colors with the added, juxtaposing hues.
I painted this on a 16” by 20” canvas wrap using acrylic paints and inks. As a subtle contrast, I added earth tones to the overall monochromatic dominance. Earth colors, defined by their intrinsic brownness and mined from the Earth, have been used since ancient times, extensively in fact, by artists throughout history. Ochre for example, which comes from iron that occurs naturally in the earth and from which we get many yellows, red, and browns, was found all over the world in ancient art as was yellow and red ochre, and umber, which contains both iron and manganese.
In “When Time Stood Still”, ribbons of time have come to rest allowing us to enter a place inside our heads where our own, authentic ideas dwell, awaiting our exploration. This is the ideal space where we can understand our own, intrinsic emotions and spend valuable time alone with ourselves.
Painting available in my online shop. View here – https://ellenpalestrant.com/product/when-time-stood-still/