NO LIE IN HER FIRE
Welbart Slowhands
“She’s mad, but she’s magic. There’s no lie in her fire.”
Charles Bukowski uses these words to describe the impassioned muse in his work “An Almost Made Up Poem.” Here, he longingly tells the story from afar of a woman – “one of the best female poets.” A unique and ardent soul, but one tied down by the realities of love and life.
In the art of Welbart Slowhands, the woman is similarly depicted as the figurative muse. Going beyond classical portrayals of the female nude, he paints his figures both as a representation of the woman’s indefatigable spirit and as actors in an enigmatic psychological narrative, spanning the personal and overarching. Each figure, graceful and balletic in gesture, is rendered with a sense of autonomy over both their bodies and the secret symbolisms they allude to.
For the artist, a mask serves as a form of self-preservation; a concealment of identity, of vulnerability. Like the woman in Bukowski’s poem, the women of Welbart’s paintings have a quiet power, mysterious and nuanced in the many facets of a woman’s true strength. And yet, they are masked by anonymity so we, as viewers, may watch in awe of them at a reverential distance.
In the next line, Bukowski writes, “I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of.” His relationship with his magic muse is mired by cynicism toward love. Welbart Slowhand’s art attempts to dismantle that cynicism. On one level, his paintings depict all the symbolic trappings of a dreamlike exploration of the psyche. On another is a simple and heartfelt tribute to the women of his own life that he would see spread their wings and glow in the lights of their own fire.
– by Mara Fabella
“To Balance or Not to Balance”
Oil on Canvas
60 x 84 inches
2021
“Precious”
Oil on Canvas
60 x 84 inches
2021
“Once Upon A Dream”
Oil on Canvas
48 x 60 inches
2021
“Empress”
Oil on Canvas
48 x 60 inches
2021
“The Darkest Hour is Just Before the Dawn”
Oil on Canvas
48 x 48 inches
2021
“Play Me Your Sweetest Melody”
Oil on Canvas
42 x 44 inches
2021
“Not All Poison Are in A Bottle”
Oil on Canvas
36 x 48 inches
2021
“How to Frame Love”
Oil on Canvas
48 x 36 inches
2021
“Hazy Shape of Winter”
Oil on Canvas
48 x 36 inches
2021
