Pig Melon, Boorloo/Perth
2019
I’m painting grass.
In a flash the strip of orbs reminds me of the yearly winter overgrowth of wild oats and nasturtiums in the backyard of my parent’s house, pre-subdivision. child-me used to sludge through the long grasses, hems of her pants soaked with dew, disappointed by the limits of the garden. One corner was so overrun by vines that you couldn’t see the fence at all - I liked this part best because as a concept, it was limitless. The event of the property being cut in half now presents itself as a soft delineation between periods of life (child, less-child).
What would she think of me? In writing this I realise that it’s her I’m making these paintings for. I take a break from studio hell and try to imagine her: small and wispy, hair down to her torso, brow slightly furrowed. She’d look down on me for smoking, probably pretend to cough.
Today I’m frustrated – the paint has played a trick on me where one egg has life and the other doesn’t. Sometimes a painting is clear and other times it stares back at you like the wall that it is. Frustration dissipates though: I step through a portal where I am a child again, drawing. Through some slip of the hand she makes a wrong mark on the page but is filled with elation when she realises that this is the mark that makes the whole image true. I sense the same invigoration in me now and that comforts me. Tonight, I love painting and painting loves me.
Documentation: Lachlan Parkin