Come and Listen

1992
94 x 213 cm

(Chinese text) Come and listen to the soft Russian tones of my mother's voice, reading the beautiful poetry of Pushkin's fairy tales, and enter a world of boundless imagination, where fools turn out to be wise, the poor become royalty, and through love, perseverance and performing many impossible tasks, evil forces and hardships are overcome and it all ends with feasting and celebration. Come and listen to the magic,beauty and richness of the poetry of my mother's life.

In this painting I am reminiscing about the pleasure of listening to my mother reading Russian fairy tales, and reentering my childhood world where imagination was more powerful than reality . This painting is a grasp at the ideals that the adult mind is so afraid of. It became the realization of a dream when it was chosen to take part in the 1992 Innovational and Experimental Chinese Ink Painting Competition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. As the painting hung in that museum, I felt I finally have concrete proof to show to my friends and family in England, that my dreams to become a painter and study Chinese art were not so impossible after all. This painting is also very special because when I collected it from my framer and took the bus, the bus suddenly stopped and I was thrown from the back to the front of the bus. The painting caught on a metal bar, and I sat down dazed, with not a single bruise on me, but my painting was ripped from top to bottom. My wonderful framer, Mr. Huang, must have spent all night piecing together the tears and ironing out the wrinkles, and the painting was ready the next day to take to the museum!


© Natasha Sutta