The Painter

Mechelen, Belgium
November 17, 2019

She rests on the floor of her living room, a box of dusty photographs nestled on her lap. The television sheds the only light in the empty house. Romantic films play without sound - only the dull static from the display. She pressed the remote with the paintbrush she kept tucked behind her ear. Pause. The woman smiled at her ability to freeze time. If only it were that easy, she thought. For now, this scene was her canvas. Pouring over the photographs, she lifted one into the screen light, using the bristles to gently wipe dust from the negatives. She only desired the subjects from each portrait. The one she chose that night was a young couple sitting on the beach. Her glasses fell from the bridge of her nose, and as if innate, the brush pushed back. This will do, she thought. The artist found her easel and began to paint. 

With every few brush strokes, she swiped her bangs away from her forehead and bit the end of her brush to glance back at the television. She contemplated her palate. An infinite combination of hues and she only blended her colors in monochromatic tones. As an artist, she never tires of her colors. But rather, color seems to tire her. In the spare bedroom, the completed pieces stack against a bare wall. Her paintings were not meant to be shared. Always the same couple painted in the foreground of endearing film scenes that never truly transpired. But within each painting, a progression of vibrancy seeps through subtly over the years - as if each one had its own place to grieve.

For the woman, no arrangement of colors will ever truly revive the palette she once had. She paints infinity from the finite, searching for the balance between widow and artist.