April Gornik: Fresh Light

April Gornik, Fresh Light, 1987, Oil on linen


American artist, April Gornik's painting, Fresh Light was probably the first individual painting that I ever appreciated. Up till then, I had been admiring of art in general and specific artists and their body of work, the Impressionists, for example. However, while on a trip to United States when I was thirteen, a cousin aunt gifted me a book about art, an introduction to art, rather, and I discovered the painting in that book.

I had never previously heard of the artist, April Gornik; yet, the painting thoroughly enchanted me as soon as I saw it. Having grown up and lived in the Gulf for so long, where the sky is inevitably cerulean-blue every day and the landscape generally stark, there is something about this painting that reminds me of the euphoria that would fill me whenever the skies turned gray and the air smelt of the promise of rain. In this painting, it appears that it is invisibly and quietly raining, the smells and sounds accompanying rain fall wafting up from the painting. You can almost hear the quiet, distant rumble of thunder and feel beads of water speckling the backs of your hands. For me, this painting would be synonymous with serenity.

Having serendipitously found this place, one would be truly reluctant to leave it.

Image courtesy April Gornik