Playing with Colors of the Heart

When I was a young girl, I would attach a big sheet of rough paper to an easel, take a pencil or a brush and then try to draw things. Vases, mugs, apples and tomatoes were my favorite subjects. My school teacher would put my paper creation on crumpled fabric and hang it on the classroom wall.

My teachers asked us to be perfect with shapes and volume, colors and reflections, lights and shades. I always wondered how they came to know so many aspects in painting, specifically using expressive color combinations. They encouraged us to depict objects in colors different from their physical counterparts. It was so hard for me to paint a white porcelain cup without white paint or apply a dark blue color for a red slice of watermelon.

The most enlightening moment I had about the play of colors in art happened in one of my art history classes. Our art school principal discussed and showed us Manet's “The Luncheon on the Grass” and the green lady depicted in it. Since then, I have loved the play of colors in art and was drawn towards impressionism since the style looked very special to me. Two of two of my favorite collections of impressionist works are in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and in the Hermitage Museum in Russian Saint Petersburg.

My adoration for Baterbys’ collection of impressionist works by contemporary artists Elena Bond, Duaiv and Hua Chen is probably a direct effect of my early love for the style. Looking at these impressionists’ work make me feel like I’m actually in the scene they painted- like I can touch the cold and clear ocean water in Bond’s paintings, easily take a seat at her evening café with cozy lights and check if I have an umbrella with me since the way she paints rain seems to me so real.

The color tones of Hua Chen’s ballerina don’t look as blue as Degas’ dancers.
Nonetheless, looking at the image takes me back to one very cold winter day when I was waiting to enter the exhibition of Degas, Renoir and other great impressionists in St. Petersburg. After many hours of being out in the snow and feeling the cold wind blow on my face, I entered the exhibition hall and was transported to a completely different world, one full of light and sun Though that nearly magical experience took place many years ago in a city far different from Orlando (and although I am not cold anymore) looking at the bright colors in Duaiv’s works still make me feel that “sunny shock”.


Seeing these artworks at Baterbys and remembering the many wonderful exhibitions I’ve to, I remember my first painting brush - the most perfect brush I’ve ever had - which my art school principal gave me. I remember creating artworks myself and feeling different things about different objects, feelings that were real and authentic.

Because of my own experiences behind and in front of the canvas, I have to come believe that possessing these “feelings”, as expressed by colors and light, is the main difference between a piece which an artist created with his or her most honest and heartfelt feeling and another one that was done just “to pay the bills”. This intangible difference changes the “impressions” certain places and scenes make on us. Whenever you look at impressionists’ work, you will always see it as well.