Category: Flowers

Calla Curls has been an experiment. After I painted “A Lily for Mom“, I wanted to do something different and try my hand at a more abstract project. So I took a beautiful photograph showing three white calla lilies and distorted it. My first attempts at distortion did, however, not yield the desired results: the distortion seemed overdone as it represented nothing more than some odd curvy shapes in various tones of white and yellow. I realised then that while I wished to paint something abstract that I still needed to maintain a connection to reality to stay within “my creative comfort zone”.  The result is Calla Curls, an abstract version of one calla lily that I modelled by “liquifying and twirling” the photograph of three flowers of the same kind. If you look closely, you can still see them …

Vivid colors symbolising life and happiness. I dedicated this painting to my mom who sadly passed away earlier this year. She loved lilies, although she always dreaded the mess the flower’s anthers tended to create when they were left “unattended”. She usually removed the anthers from the stamens as soon as a flower had opened up.

The reference picture to this painting actually shows a white lily which was part of a magnificent bouquet that I had received years ago from a friend after the birth of my youngest daughter.