'Unclench the Cold'
Original 48x36" acrylic on canvas.
Varnished, signed by Bri, ready to hang, unframed.
*Collectors will receive an additional invoice based on shipping location/size of the work.*
STATEMENT: SENSORY OVERLOAD
“Unclench the Cold” refers to the sensation of mindfully softening to what the body tries to protect against instinctively. The best example I can give is this memory I have of being a kid ice fishing with my brother on a frozen lake in New England. We were out there for hours and the cold was intense. My body was shivering to fight the cold, as it does, as its natural response. I noticed that if I consciously relaxed my muscles and accepted the cold, stopped fighting it so hard, which was exhausting, I could actually relax into the sensation. Unclenching against the body’s perceived pain threshold. To remember that you can control some of the sensation, at least how you respond to it.
There are thousands of nerve endings in our skin. Adaptations to help us navigate the infinite world of sensory input; the heat, the sharp, the cold, the soft.
The skin is where we feel everything. When the air shifts, when we long for touch, when we feel an embrace, when a silent threat is nearby, when the fire is warm, when the ice burns, when shame is acidic, when we feel a fleeting piece of a better whole, and just before a storm hits and the weight drops.
Impossible to ignore, and ever present, how does one put these sensations into words?
Why is there not an entire vocabulary dedicated to understanding the complexity of this inner human world? Should it not govern each choice we make?
Yet we are taught to betray our senses from the start. To put the needs and egos of others before our own, to place ourselves in situations that don’t serve us, again and again. To smother the awareness of threats, call it weakness and shame ourselves into submission.
To stand in the fire, and not notice we’re burning.
I'm utilizing the vocabulary I have painstakingly built over the last decade, alone in my studio, and attempting to tell my story, in the most intimate way.
A story that I hope sheds light for others, one that evokes rawness, honesty, ownership, and empowerment. I'm painting what I've seen, but more importantly, what I've felt in my chest and in my skin, in an instant, over a lifetime.