Gabrielle Brinsmead

Oil on Canvas

50 by 50 inches

An old, unfinished canvas gets updated with a brand-new look. Over two days, I layer cadmium, scarlet, crimson, magenta and rose, then surround it with a contrast of lamp black, olive green and mid-yellow. I add splotches in the same green-black tones, beginning gently and slowly and rapidly increasing in force, until I am breathless and my legs ache. While working, I think about the way that I crave sameness and stability, and make patterns that mimic permanence. Each day I reach for the same food, and prefer to end each day in the same bed. When my patterns are disrupted, I am overwhelmed by a sense of dizzying freedom, even while strenuously resisting it.

Oil and enamel on canvas

48 by 72 inches

Gray city/ fluttering Pakistani flags/home for 12 years/ mosques/ crows/ low-hanging monsoon clouds/ Christian girls in the salon we quietly discuss church/ Bangra in the background/ flies, always flies/ the roar of hair-dryers/ the black and white gown, pinned at the front for modesty/ kites/

The city has changed, but not a lot: solar panels are the only visible improvement, still not as many as there should be/

My family and I have changed more dramatically. I have a son, a gift from Pakistan, now eleven. My two-year-old daughter is fourteen and a half. My dark-haired, black-eyed husband has gone gray and walks with a limp (from a recent surgery, hopefully not permanent),

Although I have wrinkles, guilt, more anxiety (the result of having made many, many mistakes) I’m happier, as a mother, as a wife, in my marriage, with myself.

Maybe this fuels my future tension. We are moving to another city in another country. Recently fifty, I am moving into a new decade, perhaps, probably, the second half of my life.

I won’t look better. But I can still be better, kinder, more gentle, spend more time dreaming listening, speaking up and out.

My daughter is anxious. She accuses me of not being there for her. I know I’m not, I’m barely here for me. I feel slow, dull. Pain in my chest. Half the time I’m in the future, in Melbourne, worrying about how I will do things there. Shopping? I don’t drive. Washing? Ironing? Haven’t done it for twelve years. Cooking? I’ve been trying to cook once a week with my son, so far everything has been a disaster. Which school will the kids go to? How will my husband make money? Will I ever paint again? Have exhibitions? How much will it cost to have my roots done there?

Endless questions, for which I don’t have answers as yet.

Meanwhile, we start with the long list of last times. Our last school assembly. We’ve been herded into this school for almost the last ten years. Our children are unrecognizable, and we are unbearably proud of them.

But the school hall and its chairs look too small for them now, as they do for so many of them. And I could do without this beating October heatwave, and the dust.

Oil on canvas

40 by 48 inches

In a dark place, I once again seem to have lost my way, paint-wise. Frantic, worried, sad, agitated. Green and pink, black and white, a dash of red. I get too excited, make too much mess and go through too much paper, cleaning it up.

At the end, I’m averagely happy with it. But is it complete, or does it need more? Am I done, complete? Definitely not. Do I need help and guidance? Yes. Can I rely on it to come, winging towards me through the air? Most certainly.