Tsunami tragedy drives Bellany to paint haunting images

NEWSPAPER and television images of the terrifying Asian tsunami left billions across the world reeling at the horrific loss of life.

Among those watching was leading Scottish artist John Bellany, whose dawning fear that he was becoming hardened to the suffering forced him into the studio.

Once there, the 62-year-old poured his passionate reaction to the events into a series of large and dramatic canvases.

Bellany said: "It had a devastating effect on me as it did on everybody. But I was seeing these horrible images so often on TV that eventually nothing was going in.

"The first two or three times, I was in a terrible state, but after a while I was numbed by them.

"They seemed to lose their power, which is terrible. The only thing I could do was to paint."
For Bellany, the son of a fisherman who was born and brought up in the seaside village of Port Seton, East Lothian, Scotland the images of devastation in the coastal areas had a special resonance.

In search of peace and quiet, the artist retreated to his house near Barga where he spent an intense fortnight painting four canvases, each an imposing 11ft by 7ft.

Bellany, brought up in a strict Calvinist family, and whose work remains deeply influenced by religion, said: "The pictures from the TV got into my system, into my soul, and it was like these paintings brewed in me, and then I put them out."

He added: "I painted the pieces very quickly. The intensity carried me through."

Bellany is reluctant to provide an exact commentary on the painting, preferring that the images be allowed to speak directly for themselves.

But the impact and the destruction that the tsunami caused is clear. Survivors stare out of the canvas, while in the very centre a woman dressed in white holds a tiny baby in her arms, the body limp as though asleep.

In the background, fishing boats lie on their sides, thrown by the force of the wave inland on to the beach, while the human cost is seen in a body wrapped in cloth and tied tight with a clothes line. In the distance, a blue streak of sea acts as a constant reminder of nature’s destructive power.

The artist said: "Although the tsunami was utterly horrific, one of the greatest tragedies the world has ever known, there was a poetry in what happened. The way those people dealt with it, the dignity of those who survived it, the grace with which they held their children, I was tremendously impressed by all of that.

"After over-dosing on the horror of the tsunami, I was trying through these paintings to reclaim them for my dreams."

His tsunami paintings will be shown in Scotland as part of a retrospective at Glasgow’s Mitchell Library in May.

Other paintings by John Bellany can be seen at the Marzocco Gallery in Piazza Angelio Barga Vecchia. Among his most ardent buyers can be listed David Bowie who now has a total of 12 Bellany paintings in his house. - article taken from this site