The digital home of Welsh culture.

The digital home of Welsh culture.

Menu
Disability Arts Cymru

Lia Bean: ‘Dreamer’

Art

Audio Description

The painting is 60cm wide and 80cm tall. It is made with a combination of acrylic and watercolour paints. In the centre of the painting is the focal point. A semi-realistic head and neck painted in red and pink but the head has been split in half cutting off the eyes. From the top half of the head there are bright saturated blues, oranges and pinks branching from where the brain would be in abstract flowing shapes, bending and curving like vines. These colours swirl and drip around the rest of the canvas mixing and contrasting with each other like water. The largest branch reaching out from the head is in orange.

The shape starts off thin and grows bigger as it curves off into the top right of the canvas.

Framing the figure, there is one dominant shape in bright blue, swirling around the right of the figure and into the top of the head. On the left hand side there is a smaller orange line expanding and then shrinking off and merging into the other colours around it.

On top of the colourful shapes around the figure, there are small splatters of paint in red and pink. In the top right corner and bottom left corner there are spiraling circular lines made with bright red and blue. Finally, above the head, there are three eyes painted in red. Each one grows bigger than the last, staring in different directions.

I am a young artist based in West Wales who likes to explore all different kinds of media, from textiles and paints to digital art. From the beginning of my art practice, I have always been drawn towards portraits and figures. There is something particular in how much can be said or not said about the self.

As a consequence of lockdown, we have all spent much more time alone and I thought about how I continued to see creatives make art. From #isolationcreation on Instagram to Grayson’s Art Club. It was remarkable to see people creating alone amongst all the chaos in the world.

For the theme of ‘Aildanio’ I was inspired to paint a figure expressing the strength of creativity inside of the self. How it can affect the space around us and make positive change. I also wanted to use lots of vibrant colours to represent all of the ideas inside of us.

The head opens up, branching its creative thoughts and ideas into the surrounding area in bright vivid colours. These colours mix and drip together in a structured chaos, quite like my own art practice. The eyes reaching out of the head, convey our creative thoughts and ideas being visualised into a piece of art.

SHARE