I am in the blue zone again. Again I return here after roaming elsewhere. Puddles of paint become giant pools but it’s still not enough, I need more pools, growing ever deeper. I mix raw pigment with flowing gloss and fold powder into matte paste and scrape and wash and pour, and I ruminate on the blues spectrum and their singular natures. Their different voices, the nuances they speak of, their sound and intuitive reality.
It’s the spaces between the form that are most potent with magic. A delicate wash of powder blue morphing into ultramarine, the exciteful one, as it draws away from you yet pulls you with it into its body. This most electric hue entered and became resident, it made its home in all my work. I regard my Yves-Klein-esque blue painting in progress and decide I must record what I perceive in the souls of all the blues showing themselves to me.
The dark smoky blue of Kali, a soft ashen blue that glows. Like a dark bruise blue but beautiful, on the verge of healing. Her fiery rage boiling over but controlled, embodied by this calm, cooling blue.
Kali, Goddess Tarot
A pthalo dark blue that stains the surface with deep inky washes, resonating with depth, a deep silent pool. What lurks? No one knows. But something’s looking back at you from under there. A presence breathes in the depths. It’s only resting, it won’t bite. Don’t agitate it. Leave it to cool, let it sleep.
Indigo blue, the blue of rain-damp autumn nights as you walk back home. The smell of rain, a comforting darkness. Opaque but not oppressive. A dark cloud, but one that lifts and allows the emergence of bright things. It’s a soft cloak that makes you invisible when you want it to.
Duck egg blue. The smallest whisper of blue, too shy to call itself blue. Blue and grey holding hands. A blue that can never be sad for too long, its nature seeded in the optimism of spring. I am a blue egg. Most eggs are brown but I, alone, am blue. Eat me, eat spring.
French ultramarine blue. A blue brimming with chemical attraction to itself, full of sexy mysticism. A mystery that doesn’t mind revealing itself, it tells its stories over and over if you step into it and submerge yourself. It’s like Barbarella’s orgasmatron, deceptively powerful. The most thrilling time of evening. It promises calm but absolutely electrifies. Tingles, chemistry, zinging through you. Like sitting around an open fire and regarding the blue that leaves day behind whilst you are surrounded by chatter and energy. And it’s the very blue that speaks of the whale song. It’s joyful lilt. The blue that falls in love with itself. Beautifying. Dive in. Coat me. I swallow you.
Blue Paintings, mixed media on canvas, (c) N. Nazir, 2018
Cerulean blue. Singing blue, mezzo soprano, the swallow flies and swoops and soars again. Confident blue, unafraid, with a clear way and a wide horizon. Flowing forward freely. A blue that sits comfortably in the centre, full of song and conversation, a middle high note, not shy, not quiet, but piercing, lyrical. Stealing the attention, other blues have to step back because the chatty charming child has entered the room. Let them dominate you a while, give them your energy, give them something.
Digital Print, Bristol, (c) N. Nazir, 2016
Cornflower blue. No, you are not lilac though bluebells wear you. You are naturally occurring summer in form. You speak of the lush undergrowth along dusty roads after a monsoon rainfall. Delicate but strong, hardy. Young, unsullied. You regard the onlooker innocently, modestly, but you know how strong you are. You call out though you are small and you demand life, you take it. You steal your win everywhere in abundance. You don’t need to be big to be powerful.
Now, if only I could play the blues too…
(c) N Nazir 2018
Sunra Rainz 