Andrina's Story
So just having a look at the painting, can you tell us a bit about what it means to you?
I see me free, free of pain. There's no darkness and that actually shows me that I am a beautiful Aboriginal woman. Seeing different sorts of colours helps me grow.
Just colours, every time I see colours just makes me want to just keep doing more and more painting with colours and yeah, and then I don't see the darkness or the dark side that I've ever had in my life.
So, all my paintings go with colours, and I try and represent the women and how they're feeling at the time. With this painting she's holding a flower. She's went picking some flowers in a beautiful garden. She's dressed up so beautiful and, you know, she's free of pain and she's very brave. So that's what I see. Brave, beautiful and I don't see darkness. That there's no darkness involved in this picture, so I don't see darkness anymore. I’ve taken myself out of that dark hole and introduced myself to many sorts of colours.
When do you see this image? What part of your day does it come from?
Well, this one was done this morning, so I felt really beautiful this morning, very strong. I just seen like rainbows and it's like go and paint. Because you're gonna paint the most beautiful picture and people are going to love it. So, I want people to see me as somebody. Because before I thought I was a nobody.
So, when I did this picture, I was like, wow did I do that? I'm an artist and so it makes me proud of who I am. There's got to be colours, it's gotta have colours because colours make me happy, you know? And forget about my past and look forward to my new future.
The colours jump out of the canvas.
Yeah. Well, I make sure of that. Even with the eyes. Yeah, it just makes me see I’m free, free of pain. No more pain. You know, just colours of beauty and happiness
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