PAINTING PROJECT

During my stay in the Neuekunstschule in Basel in 2011, I had the opportunity of listening to the Soul Calendar verses created by Rudolph Steiner for every week of the year.
Students from all over the world attend this school and take part in the Friday readings of the Soul Calendar verses as an inspiration for the day. I was moved while listening —even though I did not understand the meaning of the words— the way in which the truth that transcended the language expressed itself in its resonance.
During those listening sessions something evoking Pentecostal kindled my insides, acting for years as a germ, as an inspirational seed. This is why in January 2015 I asked to attend to the school for a month in order to develop an artistic project related to the Soul Calendar recited in different languages. It was during that month that I worked on this group of paintings.
Every week I used to start six pieces in resonance with the weekly-recited verse in each language: Mandarin, Spanish, French, Hebrew, German, and Dutch. Firstly, while listening to each recitation, I used to sketch out on each paper, with a pencil, the linear movements, the gestures, and shapes of speech music that those sounds suggested to me.
After this phase of first stimulus-attentive drawing, I asked to be read the verse again in different occasions along the week. During this second phase, I looked for the palette, the chromatic range, the specific quality of the sound in each language, searching different hues for that melody.
Thus, I tried tuning my sensitivity in picking the language movements in space, their ascending and descending quality: a spatial trail. In doing so, I found that Hebrew, for instance, forms a high vault towards which resonance flees in a movement that sets off from the reciter larynx, describing an extremely high curve supported from below by a deep blue.
I sensed how every language was related to an element and pondered on this: Mandarin appeared fiery to my soul; it could flutter in yellow-orange hues or turn to ashes in indigos, and burn down in sienna.
To announce the mood in which the movement would later develop into form I brushed an aquarelle tonal atmosphere first. Then, I would go on with oil glazes. This group of works is formed by two series: a first series is originated in two verses (41 and 42) each of them in six different languages, and is painted in aquarelle and oil mixed technique on paper; and a second series, developed according to Mandarin quality, is formed by one large piece and six smaller pieces in oil on canvas. In this latter series three consecutive weekly verses (41, 42, and 43) were joined in each painting.
It was not until today, December the 7 th 2017, that while writing these words the sounds I hear from my mother when she speaks unveil. She has been aphasic for more than two decades and she communicates with only three words; nevertheless, it is through her speech musicality and intonation that she manages to convey what she desires to express.
And I get what she says, thanks to the love I feel when trying to understand.

GABRIELA HENKE

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