‘The Blue Hour’
Oil + Acrylic on un-stretched Canvas
18 X 24 Inches
April 2020SOLD
The Blue Hour, a phrase which originated from the French expression l’heure bleue is a most precious time as it’s the time where “the sun has set but night has not yet fallen. It’s the suspended hour... when the night has not yet found it’s star.”
I thought this very fitting as I find that this is the Hour that almost echoes the times we are in right now. A sort of limbo of uncertainty, where everything feels like it’s been suspended in time, frozen while still trying to keep the balance that holds our society together. Could the star that we have not yet found be the changes and answers we need to make in order to learn from what got us into this situation in the first place?
In English, however this term is used more to describe a period of inactivity and uselessness, stemming from the time of day when pubs used to close after lunch before reopening in the evenings but that feeling of uselessness, having empty time/not knowing what to do with ourselves, I think is one that is also very relevant to how most people are feeling now.
I started this piece while in Quarantine and really wanted to recreate a world within this world by making it feel like nothing exists outside that room. As I feel that in a way what Quarantine has done is isolated everyone and cut us all off from what used to be our reality. Within each home is a different temporary world that people have built for themselves, a new regime to keep us sane, as we eat, sleep and work at home with very little exposure to the outside world. I find this quite interesting as with each generation that gets born into this relatively newly advanced, technological world we’ve built, humans have become more and more detached and less empathetic. I think this really started when internet became accessible on a mass level to the general public. People were happier to sell a persona or version of themselves online and a lot of them would rather live their virtual reality to the one they’ve really been living. It created a comfort blanket for people to believe they are not alone and they can be whoever they want to be, a type of nihilism. Tricking people to believe that, that’s all they need, but now, having been globally forced into a position where we no longer have the option we’re starting to crave and really understand how special human connection is. The smallest things such as touch, a hug or kiss goodbye now once again really means something. I hoped to really represent how powerful human touch/connection is through the mother and her son in my painting. I think there’s no stronger hold than the one of a mothers as there’s no closer connection you will ever build than the 9 months we all spend in our mothers womb. She represents, love strength and protection and the boy, represents hope and a new future. The lampshade represents the glimmer of light shining over them and reminiscing on a simpler time, filled with movement, laughter, nature and love.