Kyla Bresch

Moving through Time

Moving through Time was the first piece where I had a preconceived idea of what I wanted to paint. Before I started, I kept seeing this mane of rainbow coloured hair waving and flowing. I had to paint that hair! Initially, I wanted to paint two people kissing, but as the images evolved, they became less human-like and more animal in form. It felt necessary to evolve them into something beyond human, something otherworldly with the hope they could offer some insight into another kind of love. Something of wonder and marvel. Yet, as I painted, the one figure became more and more distorted and the other became clearer and more refined. He was beautiful and brilliant in colour, a warrior actually, but every stroke I did kept erasing him. I couldn’t get this kiss right- and in a moment of frustration, I erased him completely. Then began to evolve this expression of sorrow and rage in the remaining figure. Her watchful eye is adorned with glitter, a pointed slit, and a feather-like image… she is flushed with the heat of her feelings, and she is releasing this vortex of emotion- probably some rage, but more like this guttural grief and anguish that literally takes form. There are veins and branches in the texture that rise up from this vocal eruption, and spill forward into future time. This knotted emotional projectile also veins out into future time. Perhaps her anger was at me for erasing her paramour or perhaps, with her slitted, reflective eye, she looked into my soul. Either way, in Moving through Time, this powerful creature, who is also a kind of warrior, makes clear that deep wounding won’t be silenced, that expressing our deepest hurt can create impressions that carry forward, and that we must keep moving 💜