At the Edge of Nowhere - Amber Painting

I’ve done a few paintings where couches or chairs are present in an outdoor setting. I called them:  Violet, Living Room or Forest.

In this painting, Amber, a yellow-orange couch is resting in the middle of the Comox logging road.  The setting is referenced from a blurry photo I took at dusk in winter.   I liked the mood of the photo which felt almost nostalgic – dark, yet hopeful.  The alders are bare, and their rotting leaves line the edge of the pavement.  Light from the recent sunset glows in the distance.  A few white papers have been swept out of a book that is resting on the couch beside a tasseled green pillow, all signs of a recent visitor.

This spot on the logging road is not a particularly beautiful place, though it is very familiar to me: close to home and where I spend a lot of time mountain biking in an area called “The Vortex”.  You can feel the ghosts of a coal mining and forestry past lurking about.  There are old cement mining structures in the nearby woods, that have been there for a hundred years, now party hangouts tagged with colourful graffiti.  It feels like an area suspended between city and wilderness, where society’s rules become less distinctive – a bit like a dream world.

It is not rare to see abandoned couches on the side of logging roads (along with other detritus), a result of people not wanting to pay the landfill fees, or who did not want anyone to see what they were dumping.  Recently an abandoned travel trailer was set on fire at the side of the road, its remains a striking black husk.  This stuff isn’t where it belongs.

I feel like the couches and chairs in my paintings have been resurrected to serve new purposes.  Also, like in collage, when we juxtapose different elements, we uncover new meanings.  It is like in a dream, where unrelated events you experience in regular life become a random melange or perhaps a message from our unconscious.

I chose the title Amber, which is the colour of the couch, but also, like the traffic light, could mean “use caution before proceeding” or “slow down”.  The open book and loose pages, could imply some sort of information or knowledge that might be gained by stopping or is in the process of being lost.  The colour amber also refers to fossilized tree resin which is often used as a gemstone or for folk remedies, to protect against negativity or calm the mind.  In this scene we may have been invited to stop, reassess or take a break.

Juxtaposing different elements or subjects in an image allow questions to form in our minds.  And sometimes we are just attracted to certain visual elements without knowing why.  Like a dream, a painting may give us a new perspective on everyday things, provide insight or shake up our ideas of what we take for granted as normal.  We may find comfort, discover meaning or feel satisfaction in seeing an amber couch, a pillow and a book, at the edge of nowhere.