The following paintings have been submitted to an online monthly art competition conducted by BoldBrush, the company that was created by a gallery owner who helps artists sell their art through several platforms including creating websites and marketing.
I chose to send three of my paintings that differ considerably in artistic styles.
Nascent Earth is an original oil painting of a photograph from one of my travels to Iceland. Let me know what you see. It is exactly as the name suggests. The reason why this landscape painting of Iceland is named Nascent Earth is because you can imagine what earth would have looked like in the beginning. The crystal clear waters are deceptively beautiful, unpolluted and are flowing with reckless abandon over the rocks. Notice the rocks are not all rounded – some still have jagged edges. It probably means the waters here have not flown this way for centuries. The heat emanating from the ground below is heating this water, and steam arises from the ground and is visible in the horizon. The colors of the sky are reflected in the waters in the foreground, and seem almost surreal. It is not something we see every day. The hills behind are devoid of any plantation and are dark and dreary. The light, almost cream-colored silicic rock called rhyolite sticks out in sharp contrast to the dark basalt in the background. Icelandite is seen as the grey, pink and yellow rocks in the painting. You will also see interspersed several red colored rocks that are rich in iron. The brown rock is a result of oxidation when the iron and sulfur react with atmospheric oxygen. If you could smell this painting, you would get a whiff of pungent hydrogen sulfide gas emanating where the sulfuric acid is dissolving the basaltic rock, resulting in the grey colors of this landscape. Iceland is quite the experience, and the beauty in the landscape has to be seen to be believed.
Storm Chasers is an oil painting done on canvas. This is a painting inspired by a photograph taken by my friend Dr. Prashanth Kumar. I have always been an admirer of Dr. Kumar’s photography, which consumes him outside of his practice of endocrinology. I loved the tumultuous sky in this particular photograph. I love the composition. It reminds me of the movie Twister and the scientists going into the storm to study tornadoes. This is the inspiration for the title of my painting, Storm Chasers! I used some sparkly oil paint, generously donated by Cecilia Brendel, for the waters in the sea. In the distance, if you look carefully, rain is coming down and the clouds are coming in quite menacingly. If you could hear the painting, I am sure you would hear the raucous thunder that would send many a soul to take refuge. So the question is, where did the owners of these three bikes go? Obviously they must be chasing the storm! I will be painting some more of Dr. Kumar’s photographs of the waters he captures during his world travels in a series called “Prashanth”.
“Nature is our greatest teacher of surrender, of allowing, of simply being.” – Alexandra Domelle
Tempestuous is an acrylic on canvas painting and it was done as part of a series on color studies in my studio. Tempestuous is an abstract painting in yellow ochre, lemon yellow, raw umber. I just like the movement in the painting, and initially I was going to call it tempest but the attitude of the painting is tempestuous to me! It may be that clouds are moving and the setting sun is casting a golden hue on them, but the winds are causing a tempest. It’s almost like the clouds are playing with the wind, and the resulting tempestuous relationship of the wind and the clouds is captured in this sunlit painting.
I am interested in the study of color, the emotions they generate in people, and also the act of painting itself as a conduit to focus and possibly heal people. I strongly believe that color has a positive effect on the general health and well-being of individuals. Associations of the impact of art on the health of individuals abound, but we need to quantify it. The quantitative effects of the color in art can be studied by utilizing the recent advances in measuring the response of various stimuli to a human. So why not color?
I’ve designed a simple 20 item questionnaire so I can begin to collect data regarding color and my hypothesis that “color induces synesthesia and creates feelings of joy.” Please feel free to fill out this survey. The benefit for you would be to enter a drawing for a chance to win one of my original paintings. For me, I get to study the effect of color in art on the general population! A win for everybody!
Kandinsky has famously said, “Color is a power which directly influences the soul. Color provokes a psychic vibration. Color hides a power, still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body.”
I submit it is time to study this “unknown effect” of color on the human body.
Please note that the sale of this original art will generate funds for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) to help raise money for ground breaking cancer research. I was introduced to the work of LLS in 2017. This organization that has climbed up 30 points in one year to position 36 on the Forbes charity navigator. It is run by highly competent scientists and physicians some of whom who I have personally met. They believe they can cure cancer within our lifetime, and I agree. Study and look at the progress they have made since their inception nearly 70 years ago! The cure rate of blood cancers in 1960, the year I was born, was 3%. Today it is 94%. The research continues to happen at a feverish pace all over the world to bridge that gap. I raise money for Aparna who sadly lost her fight to cancer. We are losing many more as we speak whose lives have been cut short by these dreadful diseases. Just within the last week we have lost two of the greats, Irrfan Khan and Rishi Kapoor, to this deadly disease. Every life is precious. It is our responsibility to help fund the fight and propel discoveries. We are the product of such discoveries. We enjoy a longer life expectancy because of the discoveries of people who came before us. I am a product of scholarships that were provided to me when I was a young, bright-eyed, enthusiastic PhD student who put in nearly 15 hours a day toward research. So I ask you unabashedly, on behalf of these scholars who toil, to help find those discoveries that will finally beat cancer.
Dr. Lou DeGennaro said “It’s our job to cure blood cancer and put the society out of business.”
Everyone has a cause they support. LLS is mine because I believe in them. To contribute, you can either buy a painting or any of the products associated with the painting that are provided in the links. 100% of the profits are pledged to LLS through Jun 05, 2020.
If you choose you can make a donation in the link below and no donation is too small.
https://pages.lls.org/mwoy/soh/daytonlls20/hpauldey
As always, be curious and create!
Hyacinth
https://www.hyacinthpaulart.com/
