Description A young woman sits in the spotlight in this eerie piece, she cradles a white gourd while others crowd around her rickety folding chair. The white gourds are sterile and dry, but she cares for them like little lost children.
Phanie Mills Behning, Grand Rapids, MI Member Since September 2011 Artist Statement When I put my brush to the canvas, nothing in the world exists for me except for the uncertainty, and the potential in the pigment. When I stand back from a finished painting, I cannot comprehend how my own hands created such a thing. I am compelled to keep a relic from each of my paintings, because, once created, my characters belong to their own world and no longer inhabit mine.
I search for that which is otherworldly or odd; I lust for anachronisms. I seek to know the hidden life of things both living and inanimate. The secrets of my characters and their worlds captivate me, and I am always surprised by the moment of magic when they begin to speak to me. I simply let their voices radiate through my painting, although the origin of that voice is a mystery.