In Mira Gerard’s You were only waiting for this moment to arise, ethereal and semi-abstract spaces in gloaming and slanted light spill over with wildflowers, weeds, butterflies, and the occasional animal. Using her smart phone as a visual journal, she takes thousands of pictures a month as source images. “I started painting wildflowers and plants earlier this year as a side project, and almost immediately, I knew it was bigger than I realized, she explains. “On walks and hikes, I usually have to sit on the ground to see things from that point of view—at the height of a small child. There, I feel connected intimately to the earth, which heightens the experience and induces curiosity and deeper observation.”
Having lost her parents one year apart in 2019 and 2020, Gerard’s new practice of painting intimate spaces of refuge in the natural world have served as a catalyst for metabolizing grief and loss. These images gently remind us that we all live in relation to and alongside one another, as common as flowers in the fields blossoming, growing, dying, and being born.
