"Darkest Before The Dawn"...... Modern Contemporary Expressionistic Painting by Elizabeth Chapman

Acrylic on set of two gallery wrap canvases 

Darkest Before  24" x 30" 

The Dawn    24" x 24"  

Commissioned (Sold)

This painting came about as a commissioned work for a person  who contacted me with an unusual request.  She had been viewing my work over the past year and believed that I would be able to visually express a time of heart brokenness and struggling  that she had recently experienced.

As an abstract expressionist I am most often instinctively expressing and pouring my feelings on to the canvas through colors, lines, textures etc.. bringing life in a visual form to the canvas that will hopefully speak to others.  I have been asked before to create works for others based on request for color schemes, size etc, but never have I been asked to express another person's feelings.

As I read the struggles that she had been through my heart just sank and I was able to understand but I don't know that I was honestly able to feel for her.  In these initial stages I began tossing ideas around that were superficial in nature.  Unknowingly, the circumstances that followed in my own life would put me in a position to truly feel a time of suffering that I could relate with.

And so.... I have come to have some powerful connections and feelings with this painting.  What I have learned is that no matter how deep or how dark it may seemingly feel always look for the hope, the positive (no matter how small it may seem) and hang it to that... and in time it will grow and flourish in to joy!  "It is always the darkest just before the dawn."

The first painting represents those times of struggling or suffering with a glimmer of light and hope being found in the upper left hand corner.  The second painting represents the light of hope overcoming and though there is still some darkness left, it is not all consuming.  The paintings together can be seen as a night city scape with a connecting bridge. I see that bridge as the spirit of Jesus Christ bringing HOPE to all who believe.

The paintings were photographed together but  I would display them on a wall with at least an inch of space between the two. They are being prepared to be shipped to "Alaska"- Jenn.  Thank you Jenn for sharing! ... and I hope that they will speak to you as well.

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing.  Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.  Phillippians 4:8