Contrast Thoughts
In her series, Dancing Tulips, the flowers resonate with Irina’s ‘deep longing for nature’s embrace‘. And, rather than an attempt at realism, Irina uses ‘shapes to evoke emotional connections between nature and the inner self‘.
In Contrast Thoughts, the sombre blues jostle with the purity of the whites. Blue is traditionally a colour for depression and sadness. Famously, when Pablo Picasso’s friend died, he had his ‘blue period’. For me, in Irina’s contrast of thoughts, perhaps the sadness of the blue and its connotations of mourning is to be contrasted to the blank space of the white flowers which suggest a fresh start, a new beginning. For this is the work of an artist. For the artist, the blank, white space is the start of the adventure of painting. That which inspires the vision and the craft.
Interestingly, in the swaying of the dance in the group, there is one flower that is a cross between blue and white and which also adds the colour purple. The admixture of mourning and beginning, death and birth. The complexity and blurring of emotions and moods.
In the bottom right hand corner, we appear to see a seated blue bird, which is also a fallen flower perhaps. The blue is also what soars in the sky, the blue boat of the sky, the heavens. Freedom. Is there a freedom to be found in sadness? A transportation of free flight in the skies? Why? Art asks us the questions to which we have to find the answers. Perhaps the fallen flower, death, is the bird in the sky, the angel in the heavens. And, if you notice, the wings of the bird are touched with white: with purity and birth, the new beginning.
Flaming Tulips
In Flaming Tulips, the dance of the flowers is in a flamenco dress of passion. The heat sizzles through the image in the orange colours with amazing energy. In the longing for nature’s embrace here, there is the desire for absolute temperature, for the fire. But while, elsewhere, the fire may symbolise devastation and destruction, here, the fire is renewal and passionate life. Flowers, of course, have been seen as representatives of passion throughout history, and the red tulip also symbolises passion. There is a grouping of three which adds a note of intrigue. If there were two tulips, this would fit into the conventional story of monogamy. Yet there are three. There is a hint at a love triangle. And the energetic blaze of fire across the image in the orange splash of paint in the background frames just two flowers, which suggests that the red tulip at the top of the painting is going to be the loser in this dance of passion. Or, that it is trying to enter the field.
The diagonal stripes across the image convey energy and dynamism and they layer up the image structurally into the dance and its meanings. The stripes also vividly convey the sensation of burning in desire and passion amidst the flowers and their alarmingly dangerous beauty and sexuality.
About the Artist
Irina Taneva Iri IR is an internationally renowned Fine Art painter and teacher, a designer and painting parties host. Born and educated in Bulgaria and now living and working in London. Her deep interest in people and their self-awareness reflect in her art through paintings and clothing designs. Sensual, delicate and emotional female nature is at the base of her art and designs.
The artist’s favourite technique is oil on canvas because of the slow drying process allowing for intricate layers of paint that mirror the complexity of our feelings, emotions and reactions.