Patricia Trudeau, a very talented artist local to Guilderland, is sharing her The Way of the Cross series with us in July and August. Take the opportunity to meet & appreciate Patricia at our artist reception Sunday, 7/11, Noon.
Here is Patricia’s statement on the overall intention of the series…
With each of these 15 canvases I put my own experiences into them. I relived some very unpleasant memories. The relationship I have now with Christ compassion has magnified ten fold. I understand so much more.
With each of these works I had to experience what must have gone on within each. I prepared each piece by putting oil paint and oil stain on the canvas and then dripped and splashed and sprayed water on it and I sat back and watched as the paint pulled against the water and the water restricted and bounced. I moved the canvas around a bit but did little and allowed chance to happen. This was my representation of good and evil and how each intertwined but never meet. I put each contemporary interpretation into a circle. Together as a whole the circles are fluid and meet up with the very last Station which is resurrection. The Journey was a full circle. When put side by side the contemporary circles create waves. The contemporary depictions are generic and I avoided anything political.
I realize it can never be to the depth and extent of the exact people and events but I felt the woman in this series mostly and I related to Simon and Veronica and the solders and identified with all of them in order to try to walk the steep path and go on and on in this journey, step by arduous step. I felt like I needed to walk by painting this series in order to get to the resurrection. I did not know it would take over 5 years to do.
I usually paint warm and happier paintings. I just came off of painting water images for years. Some turbulant, mostly serene though. I painted all types of water. Oceans, lakes, streams, in all the seasons. I paint portraits of my children and some iare intense but never like the images in the Way of the Cross Series. I have painted my husband. I have painted my Father after he passed on and I painted my mother. I have paintied some of my pets. In between these paintings of the Way of the Cross, I would sell paintings of Irises and the like. It was a balance.
This was difficult. Something kept propelling me. I had no one commission me; there was no reason to do this. I would be asked by many, “”Why are you doing this? For who?” But I just needed to, wanted to, almost had to. Scripture predominantly came to me in meditation before the painting, sometimes afterwards like with the 4th Station (Jesus comforts His Mother) and the 15th (Resurrection)
I hope to share with you now this Journey that I interpreted onto 15 canvases.
