Helena Hadala RCA...All Series...Shadows

 

Shadows

 

Shadows, a project bridging artistic disciplines is my second collaboration with author Deng Ming-Dao. This body of work comprised of sixty mixed media images is based on his suite of poetry entitled "Shadows". The poems, organized into six chapters, each with a different theme provided many options. I chose to complement each line of poetry with one image but needed the pieces to work as a pair to reflect the poem's couplet structure. The overall compilation also needed to flow as a continuum from beginning to end, just as a poem can be built from couplets but form a much larger whole.

I started this project in April of 2011, during a one-month residency in Can Serrat, an international artists' retreat situated in Montserrat National Park fifty kilometers outside Barcelona, Spain. Happily ensconced in a private room and studio with two prepared meals a day and no distractions, I produced the core of the hybrid art-poem project. Due to the complexity of the project, continued to work on this venture when I returned to my studio in Canada. All the drawings are a uniform size, (7.5 inches by 10 inches) apply a variety of mixed media techniques including watercolour, gouache, charcoal, chalks, water based oils and occasionally printing inks. The entire body of work took a full year to complete.
 

Chapter One Chapter One
Pencil traces shadows: Pencil traces shadows:
contours of vanished stone. contours of vanished stone.
Shadows on a drawn face Shadows on a drawn face
chalk highlights far whiter. chalk highlights far whiter.
Oak trunk and shadows Oak trunk and shadows
sprout from the same root. sprout from the same root.
Shadows on a lit screen, Shadows on a lit screen,
puppets of remembrance. puppets of remembrance.
Loved ones die and leave prints: Loved ones die and leave prints:
shadows of sunlit lives. shadows of sunlit lives.

 

All designs, images and text are copyright to Helena Hadala RCA