Kyla Bresch

Re-cover

This painting, Re-cover, is the painting that I still look at, thinking I didn’t finish something. It holds the promise of another stroke, something to disrupt the golden center that draws the eye. Initially, I decided to do this painting as a reclamation of some profound ground I had lost in my life. Pens Chodren writes, When Things Fall Apart, and after processing the falling, I wanted to find the light or the way forward in a burst of colour and images. Yet, when I started this painting, I painted a few layers in quick succession and ended up with this beautiful heart bleeding colour. I saw it clearly and felt it too. But I had three small girls looking at me, the oldest sitting with me in the dark of night dripping paint. What do you do with that? Yes, it was where I was, and it brought a soft smile to my lips- a nod to an inner knowing. And I could have left it. Looking back, my mom said that temporary image was her favourite. But I needed to keep stretching the image, keep angling it further to see forward- I had to find some way forward. So I painted late at night, exploring these soft, light colours. Poppies showed up- magnificent and toxic— they could hold some tension. And then I started seeing these embryos growing—black and lit from within… and I started imagining how we evolve and how our choices are in part—in our coding, but also in how we are raised up, held up, and loved—this shapes our path too. I added these playful DNA symbols with oil pastels—but it was more about how this idea of how we develop is at constant play between these expressions—what we design is shaped by what is given to us. We draw from its bounty and its absence. The golden center is like a paste or healing balm for the understory. And the feathers—to me—symbolize the lightness and airiness that acceptance and realization brings.