[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_image admin_label=”Image” src=”https://www.abigailmarkov.com/wp-content/uploads/YA-Power-Tiny-9886.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”on” animation=”off” sticky=”off” align=”left” force_fullwidth=”off” always_center_on_mobile=”on” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”] [/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”]
“If you have to tell people you are, you probably aren’t.” – Steve Muller
Power is a fascinatingly complex concept for an experience so universally human. The concept is often the scapegoat motivation for evil deeds, yet, just as often, it’s the word we use to describe the inner force that propels great individuals to create positive change. It’s frequently lumped together with the more nuanced concepts of influence, force, potential, and drive. It’s associated with size, brute strength, cruelty, ruthlessness, and, when faced with great power, it stirs a primal fear in the guts of the bravest of us. Power, in whatever form, is a life-and-death, gut-instinct-level experience most of us have had at some point in our lives, and whether we were the powerful or overpowered can and will shape how we engage with and relate to power dynamics in our lives for our the rest of our lives.
On The Painting
The color choices for Power are fairly typical power colors for western culture: reds, yellows, golds, and purples, all deep, dark, or saturated. Intense colors. The flow of the paint bears resemblance to an explosion, like a volcano, red-hot and fluid. It’s still a complex and nuanced piece in the details, with a simplified composition – gold to deep purple gradient from bottom right to top left, with a focal line resembling flames unfurling in the dark running on a bottom left to top right diagonal through the middle of the piece. A simple but obvious draw for the eye, with no calm place for the the eye to rest, feels visually like being confronted with power you cannot escape; whether it’s power of the other that leaves you feeling terrified with watery guts, or gloriously and uncontrollably being engulfed in the flames of your own power being unfurled, that depends on you, and how you relate to power.
Despite Power being one of those primal, universally human experiences, how we relate to it and respond to it is as complex and as varied as we are – very.
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