Gris Parfum

I was conscious of mixing dirty and sweet colors in this painting, Gris Parfum. Composed of alternating stripes of dove grey imbued with clay-brown. Accompanied by deeper grey stripes, punctuated by strokes of light pink.

This painting is a metaphor for the day that I walked to the ocean in a constant rain. I came across brambles of green bushes that appeared blurred and greyed by the inclement weather . Occasionally, some pink-tinged white beach roses peaked out of the greyness. It would astonish me that such tiny flowers would summon a resistant, inner light—in the absence of sunlight—and be so bright.

Approaching them closer, I would catch the scent of their sharp, sweet perfume–even through the watery air. Walking back home along the dirt road, drenched and muddy. Cognizant that it was remarkable to discover something so exquisite and miniature, against the colossal scale of a sky of rain. Thus, the painting: beauty struggling out of ugliness. Dabs of solace in distress, something aspiring yet unfinished.

–STELIOS author of The Oculus