Ghost Fighter

Dear Reader,

After a long break from writing we are well into the new year. Over my break I’ve enjoyed the physical grunt of renovating my house and studio. I will share more about my studio organisation soon. Painting has been happening at a slower pace and I’ve been exploring movement. While drawing in the Adelaide parklands recently and met a young man practicing kickboxing. His movement intrigued me. He was light and fluid, with extremities that flicked. The space around him was filled with his imagination. I was in awe of how he used that space. I wondered who he was sparing with as he practiced? The flicks threw his energy towards a dreamed up ghost. He was in an awesome drama.

As a kid I remember easily slipping into imaginative play, exploring my supernatural qualities, testing my powers, and transforming into something really amazing. The world was full of magic adventures. Today the magic adventures are still present and the world feels more nuanced as my ‘superpowers” grow. Being alive is full of challenge. Valuing my dreams and imagination has helped me discover growing parts of myself through play. Our imagination is a gift. A space we enter to explore our greater nature. When alone I often catch myself rehearsing scenarios with inner figures when I’m trying to work out relationships, or building myself up to do something new.

So it is with paint. I’m always thinking about brushstrokes and colours; rehearsing inside my half finished works and looking for clues on how to proceed. A picture plane is a space for imaginative play. The canvas and our psyche are one. In that repetitive practice something is worked out on the canvas, in my psyche and body. A finished picture is a temporary resolution; a moment in time to depart and start afresh or return to later.

The medium of paint, and the language of shape, tone, edges, brushmarks and colour are doorways to all my senses and enable me to breakdown experiences. I enter into a process and linger with an experience until something in me is realised through a painting. I think in the painting above I’m trying to understand this person as a movement in a space filled with ghosts.

Thanks for reading my blog. I’d love to read comments below about your experiences. If you’re interested in receiving my blog in your inbox regularly sign up in the right hand bar.

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The above painting is titled ‘Ghost Fighter’

It is painted with oil paint on canvas and mounted on board. 20cm X 25cm.

It’s available on my website at http://lynnlobo.com/product/ghost-fighter/