Taimeng Lim

My Inspiration

Heart and Love is a painting inspired by a lore and the meaning behind the fruit. In ancient Rome, the strawberry was a symbol representing Venus, the goddess of love, because of its heart shape and colour.

As subject matter for this painting,

I chose to use three strawberries. The young unripe one is to represent the child, born of love, innocent and pure; whereas the ones placed side by side are meant to show the coming together of two hearts. The light from the window, cast upon the berries creating shadows, is used to symbolise the ups and downs of any given relationship. The heart keeping love together is painted as the stems that bind the fruits together.

I also arranged the stems of the fruit to give a vague sense of familiarity to the arteries, veins and vessels of the human heart.

In a way, this piece is sort of a mantra of its title. Many of its components repetitively reminding us to have heart and to love, to keep loved ones near and to be ever-present with people important to us in our daily lives.

My Design Strategy

For this piece, I wanted light and shadow to play a part in creating the mood and feel of the subject matter. I placed the strawberries in the direct path of the sunlight coming through a window. The pot being out of view gives more emphasis to the stems and leaves leading to the fruit.

My Working Process

For the base, I choose to work on sanded pastel paper that is able to take wet applications as this enhances the depths of colour. I started with a simple drawing then applied a thin layer of gouache underpainting to establish the initial value and details of the object and background. Using pastels, I applied multiple layers to achieve the colour and values of the objects. I then focused on the cast shadow before the background. Pastel pencils are then used for finer details. I finished up by adding glowing lights to harmonize the colour temperature of the overall painting.

Finalist