Heidi Carlsen-Rogers

Acrylic, Gouache and Pencil on Canvas (Horizontal Diptych), 60" H x 72" W

Originally for the WomanMade show, I was going to create a large painting that studied and explored the color pink, as this is a hue that is typically associated with women and being feminine.  

But I shifted to thinking about the piece more in terms of the current series I am involved with called Flower Portraits, where I paint large abstracted drawings of flowers.  

I decided explore both of those ideas together to represent what is to me a distinctly feminine symbol – a pink flower.  

This flower is not a specific bloom, but one that is made-up - a compilation of the lines and shapes of flowers that I keep with me in my mind.  

The shades of pink in the painting express the full life cycle of a flower in terms of color.
 
The colors speak to the grit and perseverance of the journey where a flower seeds, grows, buds, blossoms, then slowly starts to fade, eventually falling back to the ground where it began.  

There is beauty throughout the changing stages of being a flower/woman – the colors tell that story as they fluctuate between vibrant and muted; fresh and withered; dewy and ashy; pale and deep.  

The underlying surface is rough and gritty, representing where a flower comes from symbolically – dirt or soil.  

Above the horizon line, the upper canvas focuses on the time in the life of a blossom when it is in the state of being exquisitely and most abundantly alive – fully beautiful.  

The lower horizon tells of the fading, quieting, and greying that happens as the flower’s life cycle is winding down - when it will be brought back into the earth.  

On the horizon line itself; the colors cross over into one another – swaying between youthfulness/blossoming and quieting/aging.  

The piece was done in two parts because I thought one canvas could not express or hold the full story of the flower and her life cycle.  

Even though this is technically a portrait, I wanted the painting to read in a landscape format with a firm horizon line because I consider the landscape to be extraordinary – something that feels monumental and expansive.

I represent the “woman as flower” symbol as the same – powerful, beautiful, intricate, complex, with a presence that spills over the edges of this canvas.