©Lianne Morgan Leaving the Reborn 2021 1m x 1.5m Acrylic on Canvas
Back in March 2020, just before the whole world experienced Covid 19 lockdowns, I had to have emergency surgery on my cervical spine to stop me from becoming paralyzed from the neck down. I was in total shock from being told I would become paralyzed if I didn’t have surgery, and I wasn’t functioning well emotionally or physically. Three years before this operation I had separated from my then Husband and my children,s father, it was painful, shocking, very scary, eye-opening and it shook my core belief system. Not knowing how I was going to cope financially and wanting to protect both my sons from the vile atmosphere of the divorce was exhausting but remained my main objective throughout the painful separation. After the divorce, I created a wonderful home for both my boys and myself to live in. I agreed to a shared care arrangement because I knew having a healthy loving relationship with both myself and their Dad was the most important focus. I am adopted and lived all my life with the feeling of not being wanted and I did not want that for either of my children. My oldest son decided to leave very soon after I purchased our new home, I still haven’t seen him to this day. I have tried through various ways, sending letters, and arranging family mediation, turning up at his home only to be met with a high level of aggression. I hope that one day he heals the pain that was caused, as I have and we can build a loving, caring new found relationship. Days before my surgery on 1st March my youngest son asked to live with his Dad and promised he would stay with me every other weekend, from the moment he moved out I was erased. My son was refusing to come and see me at all, the blame was put on Covid 19. I was erased as my son’s Mother. To this day I await a call, text, or a visit with an aching heart, for both of them.
The operation was a success but as I have started to realise throughout my life, everything has its price and the price I was paying for not being paralyzed was being given the most horrific electric shocks and spasms that would rip throughout my body for hours at a time. I decided I was going to sketch, dance, and sing my way through them because these activities release my happy chemicals and dopamine is a great healer.
Whilst the spasms were taking place I wasn’t able to make conscious decisions about what I was putting on the paper, so the sketch I used for the main painting, defiantly came from a part of my subconscious mind.
It’s now November 2020, Wales has just come out of their second lockdown period, and I am the proud owner of an amazing studio space in the Centre of Cardiff. After having a major life shock and realising we’re not here as a dress rehearsal I am now doing what I love every day, or at least when my body allows me to. I am revisiting the sketch, I have now called Leaving the Reborn and I begin painting the large 1000mm x 1500mm canvas and it feels so good to be back.
I prepped a large canvas 1m x 1.5m because I want the painting to be overpowering and make the viewer feel small in comparison. As I began to put paint and color onto the canvas I am aware that there are purposeful decisions being made, such as wanting to paint the woman as a flat image and encase her in black.
It’s clear that the three fish are my sons and my ex leading them away. I’m speaking my truth and they move further away. Their eyes are closed because they cannot see what’s happening. The cage in my neck is what I have had fitted and I feel like I am just my neck and spine, I am not feeling anything else other than the electric lines you see in the sketch. I am interested in the childish manner that I used to sketch this in and I feel like my inner child was at work with this one, as this is not at all my regular style.
The black space within the painting began to become very significant, this is where I feel all the emotions and toxic energy is held. A focus and belief that the negative space is where most environmental activity happens is a common belief and thread throughout most of my artworks. I began to build up texture and movement within the strokes of the black and also played with a matt and gloss finish. My objective was to create how we as humans can let the external emotions that sit within our environment bounce off us or we can become sponge-like and absorb all energies, I feel I show this through the different black tones, matt, gloss, and movement of strokes.
