Dorothée Chabas
  • Home
  • paintings
  • Neuroesthetics blog
  • Bio
  • SF Plein Air Painting Society
  • Contact

Why painting flowers is relevant to me (about empathy)

4/28/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
I paint flowers because they are somewhere in the middle on the spectrum between still objects and live models. I don’t want to paint live models anymore at this point because I can’t escape empathy with the model. I don’t want to paint inert things because I want to sense the breathing and movement of things, I like the natural organic forms over the human made ones. Flowers are a great compromise for where I am in my painting process. With flowers I can concentrate on colors, forms, movement and energy, which I want to combine in my paintings. Flowers allow me to navigate more freely on the spectrum of object identity (I am not a botanical specialist so I am free). Flowers allow me to work with the elements and the big picture at the same time (bouquets can be considered a sum of flowers or multiple individual flowers, and I alternate between the two experiences). Flowers are colors and shapes by themselves (reminds me of Matisse). Flowers are a great excuse for experimenting with paint handling (various textures). Flowers have other dimensions, which is great on a synesthetic standpoint (smell, symbol, esthetics..). Finally, flowers allow me to reflect on empathy, which is my relationship with what I am looking at, whether it is a human being or a thing. I have more empathy with a human body than with a vase, but I do have some intermediate level with living things like trees and flowers. Thus, while painting flowers, I can navigate on my own spectrum of empathy in regards to painting in general. Empathy fascinates me: how it works, how we can ‘t resist to it, how it affects how I see and how I paint, from the visual integration of information to the output of the touch of the hand. It is a core question in my neuroesthetic quest. Bouquets are complex enough in terms of structure and color to fulfill my needs of multidimensional paintings. I develop both my sensorial and analytical approach of painting, in a way that is finally relevant to me because I care about both dimensions. 

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Dorothee Chabas is a painter and neurologist

    Archives

    April 2019
    October 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    June 2017
    April 2017
    September 2016
    October 2014
    September 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

© 2014 Dorothee Chabas