A Mother's Journey: Kelowna Artist Explores Birth, Renewal, and Spirit Journeys in Her Work

Описание: Kyla Bresch, a visual artist living in Kelowna, BC.

"I am a local emerging artist from Kelowna. I paint with acrylic, oil, pastels and ink."

"I first developed a relationship with art when I was in my 20s. I started to paint stories of experiences I had been through. Some were simply events I’d lived, but others were the kinds of stories that people didn’t share out loud. They were semi-abstract recollections of events that I couldn’t make sense of, that I wanted to honor as having happened to me, and that I wanted to heal from. Over time, I learned that painting with my hands and various objects made it possible for me to tell a kind of story that was interactive. In some earlier works, I played around with embedding objects into art such as tiles, flowers, and textured clay. They were like artifacts I could add to the narrative to help complete the feeling of the story. But I never figured out how to seal them in the way I wanted, so I set that process aside for now."

"Process in art is really interesting. I remember one time I painted this canvas a beautiful yellow, and I went straight to the shower and washed as much of it away as possible. I remember feeling this incredible relief as it rained off the canvas. In fact, as part of my process, I often find I create an image, knowing that it is temporary to the process; I honor that it was inside of me, kind of like, “whoa that was powerful and I wonder where it came from” but then I say, “well, I’m still in-progress on this, and it can’t end there.” I don’t know how I know that, but I know that image, that temporary one that appears is part of the story of releasing something. And I know when I look at the finished art, yes, there are layers that you can see, but the understory is what makes me smile; it’s like the road map it took me to get there."

"In the last few years of painting, I’ve noticed that I have this hunger to play and experiment with so much color and form. My life is not exceptional in that I have experienced a lot of trauma. I think part of life is to suffer, but I think how we process that trauma, and how we respond and return to embracing this present life, is a remarkable quality and gift of our humanness. When I move the colors with my hands, I am re-imagining the story. Sometimes, I am literally slashing the canvas with so much anger, and then smoothing the paint with my hands to soften the colors. I also think that as a mother of three girls, I am trying to find a way to hold their stories too, the stories of birth and renewal and spirit journeys. Recently, I was told by a friend that my work is haunting. I think that is a fitting way to explain my process; it is a tension between the haunting and healing. I like to think that in the end, hope and joy and embracing presentness have the final say."

You can learn more about Kyla's art at KylaBreschArts.com, instagram.com/kylabresch_artist/ and processart.ca/kylabresch

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