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The canvas stands four feet tall with a gray tainted pink top layer of paint. Beneath the pink layer, are underlayers of piercing blood reds, black, and orange that are revealed by violent scrapes in vertical and horizontal motions across the greater area of the canvas. There is a black mass that is almost cloud-like off-centered to the left of the painting. Surrounding it are the vertical blood red scrapes. The painting suggests elements of omitting a part of self, but later uncovering this with the painful reveal by scraping away the pink paint to reveal the red flesh like under layer.

A DAUGHTER'S FIRST HEARTBREAK

Ayanna Bell

Acrylic and house paint on canvas

Undergraduate
I have an incessant desire to capture even a glimpse of my psyche. Through experimentation and following intuitive creative choices with color, texture, and movement in my paintings I have been able to nourish this desire. There is an entrancing period within this process that carries me into the depths of my emotional world and holds me there until I feel like I have resolved something. As a result, that transient period unraveled the psychological experiences in my childhood and adolescent years.