"Movement" Artist's Statement

"Movement." Brittany Hennigan. February 3, 2018. Acrylic on White Canvas. Inspired by Photo. 15.5 hours. 

So I've never written one of these before and when I had a teacher willing to teach me how I chose not to because I was only painting specific types of paintings because he assigned them; there was no deeper meaning.

So here goes...

I paint as a form of stress management. I did not realize this until I was an adult, but that is a huge part of why I do art. (If we're being entirely honest it started as anger management as a child and then transitioned well to stress management as an adult). 

I started this painting because I was injured. I fell off a long-board over the summer and gave myself a good ankle sprain complete with nerve damage and also somehow tennis elbow. I was down for the count and unable to exercise (my other main form of stress management) I was going nuts and was getting pretty angry at the injury and my inability to manage my stress. 

I bought the biggest canvas I could find at Walmart and started painting. I was feeling more of a color than a particular object, so I looked up pictures of purple things until I came upon this great butterfly picture. 

I chose the name for the painting while working on the background. I've been told I make things "too busy" and I began to worry that there was too much going on in the background. Using my reference picture I decided to continue despite the large amount of movement in the background: I liked it. 

I left the top left of the background rather plain because I enjoy the purple/green contrast. It is also symbolic of the movement yet to come in my life. 

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