More thoughts on the perplexing nature of the happy-sad state
It is interesting to me how my art changes and evolves in its presentatio and meaning — in my interpretation of it — without changing at all physically. uch is the case of The Perplexing Nature of the Happy-Sad State triptych.
The Perplexing Nature of the Happy-Sad State explores emotional duality -- an experience that feels constant and deeply embedded in my daily life. I am often aware of multiple, seemingly opposing emotions existing at once: happiness alongside sadness, anger intertwined with compassion, loneliness held within love. This artwork specifically explores the simultaneous presence of happiness and sadness as coexisting truths.
I recently told someone that “I am happy and sad all day long everyday. I have been like this my whole life. I am angry and compassionate at the same time and I feel these things at the same time that I am feeling bored and also accomplished, despairing and hopeful, lonely and also loved. What is this all about? I think my art and particularly THIS art “explains” it well but does so only visually.
My process is intuitive and responsive. These 3 panels were created using colored pencils, watercolor pencils, and acrylic, micron, and metallic pens on wood panels. Each panel functions as a self-contained visual field while being part of a larger internal landscape. I allow the shapes and forms to develop freely following their own internal logic as they expand, contract, and shift. They emerge organically guided by movement rather than by any preplanned structure I could devise.
From there I apply colors deliberately, choosing them for their symbolic and emotional resonance – e.g., yellow as light, blue as tears or water, red as action, pink as love and caring, green for growth, and so on. I feel that the hues and forms interact and interrupt one another and this reflects the instability and fluidity of feelings.
Repetitive motifs (dots, stitches, linear pathways) act as a visual language that references both biological systems and emotional mapping. These marks offer structure and mirror the ways we attempt to organize and understand our internal experiences.
How so? We “connect the dots” and “patch things together” or take things “step by step” etc.
I hope my art invites viewers to consider the complexity of their own emotional states, where opposing feelings are not mutually exclusive, but deeply interconnected.
