Old Darkness Fills Me With Unbelievable Sadness by Ina Mar

Girl haunted by the pain and fear of memories that are not letting her go on. It’s a small step to take, but her feet seem to have grown roots into the ground.

Inspired by a verse by Paul Lobo Portugés:

old darkness
fills me
with unbelievable
sadness

Dimensions: 70×70 cm (27.5×27.5 inches)

Technique: mixed media (pencil drawing, digital painting and photomanipulation using multiple textures from my own stock)

Creative procedure:
1. Pencil sketch (see below)
2. Research for drawings by old masters, fitting my idea and lines
3. Mixing my sketch with 6 sketches by old masters (see below, “Sources/Credits”)
4. Digitally repainting / redrawing some parts
5. Adding the text (font taken from book illustration, ca. 1450)
6. Adding structures, colour highlights, refining

Sources/Credits:
- Verse by Paul Lobo Portugés
- Tree drawing by Cesare da Sesto (ca. 1500)
- Arm sketch by Albrecht Dürer (1504)
- Shield holder drawing by Hans Baldung Grien (ca. 1520)
- “Nude squatting man” (self-portrait) by Egon Schiele (1917)
- Skull head taken from “Death and Life” by Gustav Klimt (1911)
- Bird drawing taken from wall mural, Grand Palace, Bangkok

Here is my original pencil sketch (I know I can’t draw!):

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Mixed media: pencil drawing, photo (child, textures), photomanipulation and digital drawing

Stones from Heaven by Paul Lobo Portugés

“What crime what sin had those young hearts conceived
That lie bleeding torn on a mother’s breast…
The human race demands a word from God.”—Voltaire, ” Poem on the Lisbon Earthquake” (1775)

the flesh of the city blends its blood with the dust of earth’s grave
the devil quake broke the bones of their beds with its terrorist bomb
they could see the day light of death in the beaten air
feel it in their prayerful souls as the some time glad day sun fell
into forever’s darkness and all the all reeked with the ashes of fear
where is the loving God of married hallelujahs?

all the poor man’s houses falling falling “amid the deepening gloom”
into a tomb for sons of promise and green daughters
their pleasure and pain drowned in a ghost of tears
lost like raindrops on the grey face of the bottomless ocean
vanished like the passing shadows of stories in the imagination of clouds
why oh darkened God of stones God of the Word God of Heaven?

in the once bright light of a schoolyard’s promise silence now bleeds
where young eyes yesterday shouted from their books a belief in tomorrows
now the living dead carry their bodies with loving worms
on the gallows of their bent backs wander the veins of the beaten streets
chanting horror’s verbs black angels mourning the flesh of graves
where is the open hands of God the prodigal Father?

they lie down forever in the weather of their sorrow with the innocent dead
weep for the seed of their breathless children in the blood lit city of gospel sorrow
no glad to be home families no wined friends with hope’s holiday songs
no loving child’s prayers or whispered shut eye no sweet good nights
no these good soldiers of Jesus’ hosannas are the inspired blind no more
to the womb of endless night no to the forsaken God of their brambled loins

NOTE: If you are located in California (CA), don’t miss “A poetry reading for Haiti Soleil“, Sunday, April 18, 2010, at 7 p.m. in Hieronymus Lounge, Westmont College, Santa Barbara. The reading will include readings by Paul Lobo Portugés, as well as Chryss Yost, Sojourner Kinkade Rolle, Galicia and Starkey, Alice M. Scharper, Perie Longo and Barry Spacks. A suggested donation of $5 or more will raise funds for Haiti Soleil.

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She has become one with this environment. Woman and ocean are a unity in the dimensionality of an imaginary space. There is a correspondence between the inside and the outside. A sea turtle, a fish, sand and seaweed have become encrusted into her body. The body is the very ocean itself, and the ocean is at the heart of her flesh.

The two horses on bottom right symbolize borderline situations between phantasy and reality and their mariage.

Drowning in Your Ocean by Ina Mar, November 2009, Series surREALITIES
Mixed media, mainly photomanipulation and digital painting

Following poem titled “Your Absence” goes with the artwork:

Your absence – too long – I cannot move
Injecting
anesthetic through my numb and empty heart
now I  wake from a coma
see visions of you
those Words we couldn’t mumble
that Warmth we couldn’t share

I’m dazzled by the nudity
of your soul set free
a boundless ocean for me to
glide and gleam like a silverfish
You set me moving again
I’m becoming iridescent
golden hues, silver hues
my eyes can’t rest in your ocean
but
wherever i swim, i’m lost
wherever i dive, i drown
so deep and dark it is
(Text by Ina Mar, adapted by Damian Bullen)

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