This painting is one about the beauty of flowers but also about life.
The first abstract painting where the goal was to make the exquisite beauty of paint the subject as much as the actual subject.
This painting was entered into the Wynne Prize and ignored.
A very large abstract work. To see in person is to see it’s intense complexity of form and color, and hence its beauty.
Dimensions: 63x122cm
Painted: 2017
Materials: Acrylic on MDF board
Private collection
The story behind Field of flowers Yarra Glen 1
When spring arrived in 2017, I felt an overwhelming and intense need to go out and paint the most beautiful thing I could. I had been suffering from severe depression due to the recent suicide of my brother, and then soon after the tragic death of a very close friend. Making a beautiful, abstract work of art would lift my spirits.
It took a little bit of a trek, but eventually, I arrived at a spot where I would find the most incredible view. It was atop a modest hill and looked down across the Yarra Valley. There were numerous different flowers in full bloom, and the sun shone down from a blue sky.
The painting took most of an afternoon, and I managed to capture the incredible visual beauty of the field of colorful flowers that lay before me. There was all manner of colors in the flowers – from yellow, orange, red, purple, mauve, and even pale blue – this was all set off against a field of the greenest of green grass.
Once I had finished this painting, I packed up my things and returned home. There were tears in my eyes – I knew Luke and Rebecca would never get to experience this magnificent beauty I had witnessed. I will also never be able to show them this abstract expressionist work of art either. But I can try and share with the world the sheer majestic beauty of a field of flowers.
Bert Ernie
Detail views of abstract painting Field of flowers Yarra Glen 1
