Recovering, oil on canvas, 50 x 60 cm
(click on image to enlarge)
The fourth in my Ménière's series, this one is concerned with recovery. Patchy recovery, but recovery - hence patches of orange and red among the grim blue-green.
Thanks to a pill called Serc my world is coming back into focus. The desire to paint is returning. The energy to paint is returning. The concentration to blog is returning.
Hello folks!
Harry, this is wonderful news. I only hope it continues and that very soon, this whole ordeal is but a distant memory for you.
ReplyDeleteImmediately upon seeing this new image of yours I felt the hope of the colours returning to the face. It's as if you are emerging from the darkness of the shadows. You are such a wonderful storyteller with your brush.
Excellent
ReplyDeleteThanks, Nicki. I still seem to be improving so that's great, though there is no 'cure' for the condition. If i can live a moderately normal life, then i am content. (I've sampled the alternative for five years and it wasn't pretty, lol).
ReplyDeleteThanks for your supportive comments. Have a wonderful Christmas, Nicki. Warm greets from Oz.
Saudações, Skizo. Tenha um Natal feliz e em paz. Obrigado pelo interesse demonstrado no meu trabalho ao longo do ano.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a terrific painting, Harry and it's good to hear that you are recovering, both physically and creatively. The blue suggests a cold numbness to me and the orange, fleshy coloured bits remind me of life, surging through. Bravo.
ReplyDeletegood to hear you are back and recovering... fascinating portrait Harry: the facial expression seems to suggest an acceptance of the condition. in such a state one only has to deal with recovery rather than frustration as well... hoping this new medicine gives you sufficient relief to get on with life.
ReplyDeleteHi Harry,
ReplyDeleteIt's a wonderful painting and I couldn't be more pleased to learn you're doing better. The canvas is fairly brimming with positive energy and shows the look of a battle won.
Bravo! And welcome back!
Sincerely,
Gary.
Hallo Harry, very good work.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to my beloved blue artist.
A big kiss and a happy new year.
Un abrazo.
Hello, Harry. You have shared a wonderful present with ut - the fact that some little pill will bring you back in full force soon!!! Nothing I can add about the portrait - another beautifully realized statement about your health and the promise of recovery. Merry Christmas from the Bluegrass State!
ReplyDeleteThis is good news Harry. The painting seems to calmly tell the world or the illness, "I'm still here and I will continue"
ReplyDeleteHave a wonderful Christmas and lots of new paintings in the new year!
Sending positive energy your way! Thank you for your positive encouragement. It really helps me to stay focussed.
fantastic, Harry .
ReplyDeleteyou never stop to find new solutions .
100% back, Harry, I am so happy to read it. I look forward your posts !
ReplyDeleteIn this painting I see pieces of you getting out of the darkness.
Great !
Wonderful news Harry, so hopefully a really good New Year with lots of creative works. Happy painting 2011.
ReplyDeleteHello Harry!
ReplyDeleteVery nice portrait and interesting.
Thanks for your comments.:)
Harry,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your visits, your insights, your positive energy. I'm always excited to see a comment from Harry Kent in my box. Your connection to the images and your wonderful way with words leave me speechless every time, that is an honest excuse for my long delays in responding :o). Happy to hear your positive news regarding the Meniere's. Not sure it's vicious nature can be understood without experience. It's a good sign that you are feeling relief with the betahistine. I wasn't given the option of trying it when I was in the throes. My doctor was useless. Hang in there, Harry, it can resolve at any moment, and probably will.
I soaked up your post on material thinking. Very thought-provoking. These are important issues for the emerging artist to consider. I'm an utter instrumentalist/imitationalist. Not enough mastery of the process or understanding of art in general to allow my art to emerge, but I believe it's in there, and it will come out eventually, and it's where I want to go. I love your comments on the physical vs psychological likeness in portraiture. What should a portrait convey? A physical likeness can only be an entry point. I guess that's what makes me jealous about your work, Harry, is your willingness/ability to allow the art to emerge. Are the paintings in your present series part of your thesis work?
Have a wonderful year-end. Thanks for all your considered, thought-provoking posts this year. It's been very enlightening and worthwhile. My warmest regards, Candace.
Thanks, Elizabeth. Yes, that's how the colours felt to me, so i'm glad they make sense to you.
ReplyDeleteHave a wonderful Ozzie Christmas, filled with friends and laughter. Leave 2010 and dramas of the leg behind. May 2011 get off on the right foot and be a year of great writing and great friendships.
Thank you for the interest you've taken in my painting and the insightful observations and encouragment youve given along the way.
Rahina, thanks for the good wishes and for your support and interest over the months. Have a wonderful Christmas and creative new year,
ReplyDeleteThanks Gary. You have been a real tonic. Your interest and enthusiasm has helped keep me moving. A warm and wonderful Christmas to you and the family, my friend.
ReplyDeleteA 'blue artist'? Yes, true, i do have a thing about blue, lol. Thanks for your vivacious interest in my painting this year, Azucena.
ReplyDeleteWonder if it will be a white Christmas in Basel this year? Do have a wonderful Weihnachtszeit. Un abrazo.
Harry,
ReplyDeleteThis is good new. I'm glad you feel better. We can see more optimism in this great work.
Merry Christmas to you too friend.
Rhonda, you are always such positive person. Thanks for taking an interest in my work. Your watercolors are such a celebration of life that i do worry at times what interest my often dark works can have for you. So thanks so much for the understanding you have brought to my work and the encouragement youve given.
ReplyDeleteMay you and your familiy have a joyous Christmas!
Thanks for the good wishes, Elizabeth. The positive energy parcels arrived intact and seem to be working. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteHave a peaceful and happy Christmas. May all those institutional hassles melt away in the new year and just leave you the joy of your art.
Caio, my misfit painter friend, thanks for your friendship this year. I related to your work at first glance and have so enjoyed the combination of your soulful self portraits and outrageous blog postings with their mischievous sense of humour.
ReplyDeleteMay the peace of Christ be yours this Christmas and a painting frenzy visit you in the new year!
Olivia, thanks you for gifting me the soul of the sea in your totally amazing watercolors this year. I will never be able to see Brittany but through your eyes! The delicacy, humour, style and panache of your painting i am sure is but a reflection of the artist herself.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sticking with my often heavy brooding impasto and finding something to like in there. Have a wonderful Christmas!
Hi Harry, nice to see you back!
ReplyDeleteVertigo is awful, put out of the axis,
instead this Meniere phase is awesome!
Good balance and a very good new year!
Keep walking.
Hi Carolann. With all that snow and sleet moving across the UK it looks like you might be having a Christmas, though thanks to you i now know what wonderful Cezanne landscapes will lie beneath! Have a wonderful Christmas and power to your brush in the new year.
ReplyDeleteCarolina, thank you for following my blog this year. Have a peaceful and happy Christmas!
ReplyDeleteCandace
ReplyDeleteThanks for your visits to my blog and your articulate and generous observations. Coming from you, i have valued them exceedingly.
Your work is so immaculate, you approach so disciplined, your results so utterly stunning, that i’m left in awe every time i visit your blog. In comparison I feel i am just bumbling about, flying by the seat of my pants, hoping for miracles when i pick up a brush. But again and again i am Icarus, falling short, plunging down into cold reality. (Don't you love Bruegel’s tiny figure in the background of the ‘Fall of Icarus’ while the world goes about its business in the foreground, oblivious and indifferent to Iccy’s fate?).
You paint with complete proficiency and hope over time to loosen up. I paint with impromptu abandon but at heart believe i can’t paint at all. So it has meant a great deal to me that you have taken the trouble to visit my blog to tell me my thrashings have some merit. And yes, all the self portraits and family portraits are part of my Masters work. I am studying part-time so i have another two years to go. At the end of that time i will need to set up an exhibition for the examiners, probably just half a dozen of the best that i have done, with the rest just piled on the floor as ‘support material’.
The problem is that i paint for myself and not for assessment (i am too old to be in servitude to an institution – they will have to take me as they find me). And being like a kid in a candy store i want to try everything. So nothing actually develops. There is no coherent body of work. There will be none. My hope was/is to have a style of mine own by the time i’ve finished. Ha ha ha.
I’m sorry that you know of menieres first hand, sorry you doc was little help. I went through six of ‘em over five disabling years before one finally had the bright idea of trying the bog standard treatment of Serc. And that was only after i had joined Menieres Australia on my own initiative! Sounds like you tried Serc. Hope it works for you.
So thanks once again for your erudite blog and consummate skills. I have been an avid reader and have learnt so much from you. And thank you for your kindness and understanding.
Have a fantastic Christmas and new year. Warm and heart-felt season’s greetings, Harry
Hi Jaime. Glad you like the Meniere's work.
ReplyDeleteI paint it as a theme because like all artists i will happily quarry anything that will feed my work, ha ha. I want to paint what i know because i believe in truth in art. And I want to paint expressively, therefore i need to tap into strong feelings. Vertigo seemed like a way to go.
Thanks for the good wishes. Have a wonderful Brazilian Christmas.
Good work, Harry, in more ways than one.
ReplyDeleteyes....this portrait seems to have a solid resolve. Clear and steady...! Ot looks a lot like you (at least according to the photo that I have seen). I am glad that you are feeling better....it is very good to know that there will be many many more paintings done by Harry Kent.
ReplyDeleteThank You for a warm comment.This was done for Rapunzel actually:)) Amazing work, congrats:)
ReplyDeleteAh, the eyes are steady and the mouth determined. Wonderful painting.
ReplyDeleteHello Harry Kant
ReplyDeleteGood to know you're optimistic about the disease,
Harry remembers Ecclesiastes
There is a time for war and a time for love
Think of our daily life, how many wars we have to hang during the day,
But even in war, every day we have a moment of peace
I see this new work
this shows how strong and well prepared to continue the battle,
the lines are tight and the figure shows the concentration and determination
In Brazil there is a poet living in the Amazon, Thiago de Mello called
that has a poetry that reads:
I do not invent new path
I invent a new way to walk on the old path
I thank you for sharing with us your great artistic talent.
Wishing you and your family
A Christmas full of light, peace and harmony.
Big Hug
Paulo
you art take me totally!!!
ReplyDeletebest whises from me :-)
Thanks Gabriella. You know me - i like to get the maximum out of doing the minimum, lol. Have a great Christmas in the Big Apple.
ReplyDeleteHappy Yuletide, Celeste. Many more?? I keep telling myself i have to start painting butterflies instead of these morbid introspective things but i think they are steps on journey, both through my course and in my life. Have a wonderful Christmas with masses of friends and mountains of laughter.
Hah, so i guessed right, Leni? It was Rapunzel! Great work. Have a fantastic Polish Christmas.
Hi Hallie. Not sure now whether the mouth was determined or i was just running out of paint, lol. Do have a lovely Christmas break.
Pauolo, i love it, "I invent a new way to walk an old path". Tenha um Natal maravilhoso. Grande abraço a você também.
Hi Laura, you wonderful artist, you. Have a beautiful Viennese Christmas - with plenty of Schlagobers!
Hello Harry!
ReplyDeleteIt's good to read you are recovering and that your world is coming into focus again.
The painting (as always) is awesome full of depth and emotions. You can feel the pain when looking at it.
I wish you a very nice Christmas and a great new year!
Thank you for your wonderful art and your kind comments and support.
xoxo Monica
Merry Christmas, Monica! Thanks for your very encouraging (as always) comments. You are such a generous and warm-hearted person.
ReplyDeleteI know some of this year has been difficult for you. But you have come through, will go on coming through. I have enjoyed discovering youre secret past as a rock queen! Yay!! May 2011 rock for you.
Sorry to read about your recent illness Harry I know from a friend just what a drag Ménière's can be - debilitating to say the least. Glad to see you're on the road to recovery and back at work again - its the things we love that make life worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas & Happy New Year my friend - I hope it's a belter!
Your most recent self-portrait is so expressive of dark times and emerging from them. Well done. All of your self-portraits have been an inspiration to me. The intensity of your self examination shows in each one.
ReplyDeleteHello Harry , I am very glad U are back and painting with renovated ardour ! I wish a New Year in health and joy !
ReplyDeletetake care
Harry,
ReplyDeleteToday I came here just to leave a big hug to you! this year went fast but was very rich in learning! I loved to have met so many artists, people who live and breathe art,
and share their experiences, that will only magnify!
You're one of them, I thank our exchanges of ideas, and hope to continue in 2011.
I wish you a year of great accomplishments!
health, peace, patience, love, work, arts and rewards!
A great new year to you and yours!
Denise
Thanks for the Christmas wishes, Steppenwolf. Hope yours could still hold some magic for you. Have a creative new year. Thanks for your friendship in 2010.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Davida for your belief in my art and for commending my work in your blog back in july. You have contributed tremendously to my growing sense of an artist community here in blogland. Have a rich and stimulating new year. Warm wishes, h.
ReplyDeleteHope your Christmas was all you wished it be, Marialuisa. Thanks for your interest and encouragement during 2010. It has been so interesting having the perspective of one who knows Australia yet who has a cosmopolitan life overseas. May your 2011 be a year of good friendships, laughter and inspired living.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the hug Denise and thank you for friendship in 2010. Your enthusiasm, generosity and talent has been so important to me and to our circle in virtual artland. I look forward to great things for us all in 2011. Warm wishes for you and your family, h.
ReplyDeleteI was browsing through your blog and wow i really like this one ! Nice works
ReplyDeleteThanks, Melissa. Welcome to my blog.
ReplyDelete