The Power of Portraits

March 9, 2018April 4, 2019Leave a comment

“Heather Baron-Gracie – Pale Waves” by Valerie Parente

“Lady Gaga – Pop Star” by Valerie Parente

“Maria Brink – I Am The Dirt You Created” by Valerie Parente

“Charlotte Wessels – I’ll Reach You”

“Maria Brink – Sex Metal Barbie” by Valerie Parente

“Lisa Origliasso” by Valerie Parente

“Kerli – Pop Girl” by Valerie Parente

“Skye Sweetnam – SEVER” by Valerie Parente

I love the art of the portrait. Through painting and sketching my favorite artists, typically in the music industry, I catch a glimpse of peace.

When I am feeling inspired I find that creating art through personal ideas is exciting and even euphoric, but when my mind is clouded and I cannot generate original images in my head I turn to portraits. I’ve found, having more than one mental disorder obstacle in my life, that there is usually a time and place to face the idiosyncratic demons that dwell in my psyche. Depression, for one, can catalyze breathtaking art when the moment is right, but confronting depression through art is inopportune when I do not have the energy or mental capacity to face the darkness within. Times like this are sublime for shifting my aesthetic towards portrait painting and drawing. The power of portraits, at least from my experience, comes from the fact that I do not have to do much thinking. It’s very instinctual and intuitive. For this reason I am able to feel a sort of harmony with the plane that my consciousness permeates.

Getting lost in the use of your hand as you mindlessly translate a photograph on a screen into a portrait on a canvas is the type of therapeutic my redundant brain craves. There is something deeply meditative about studying an image of another human being, whom you admire and connect with on an artistic level, and merging their meaningful archetype in your mind with your own language of brush strokes or pencil markings. Portrait-making sends me in a zone of consciousness so powerful that I genuinely do not feel the weight of time. My perception is blissfully numb to the minutes, hours, even days that pass by while I lose my ego in acrylic shapes. The pain of depression or the edge of anxiety is muted. It still inhabits my subconscious, but the radio that is my brain doesn’t transmit these signals. All I can perceive is this timeless unity of a beloved image and my instinctive hands replicating the image with my own signature touches.

“Taylor Momsen – Reckless” by Valerie Parente

“Kiiara – Way Too Many Feels” by Valerie Parente

“Lady Gaga – Born This Way” by Valerie Parente

“Amy Lee – Lithium” by Valerie Parente

“Alecia Mixi Demner – Vixen” by Valerie Parente

“Maria Brink – Rebel” by Valerie Parente

“Kerli – ILU” by Valerie Parente

“Jennifer Haben – The Dark” by Valerie Parente

For more portraits by Valerie Parente check out the Portrait Gallery !

– Valerie Parente (3-9-2018)

Embracing Pain

October 14, 2017August 18, 2018Leave a comment

inkblot make up

It is a fallacy to believe that embracing your pain means wallowing in melancholy as you let it overpower you. Truthfully embracing your pain means facing your melancholy until the melancholy loses its power over you.

– Valerie Parente (10-14-2017)

Normal

October 8, 2017October 8, 2017Leave a comment

Normal by Valerie Parente

Tell me what it’s like.
To not obsess. To feel and not get addicted to the emotion. To be a fleeting presence of mindfulness in each moment. To care for a subject without surrendering full control of your brain.
How does it feel to be normal?
Because I never wanted to know until I met you.

“I do not want to go back to my fantasy land, but I cannot handle reality without your hand.” by Valerie Parente

– Valerie Parente (10-8-2017)

My Heart Thaws

September 28, 2016Leave a comment

My Heart Thaws by Valerie Parente

“You know that mysterious feeling when you smell a certain scent and that scent elicits specific memories?”

“Yes…”

“I’m feeling overwhelmed by a sort of time warp… a time warp beseeched by what I can best describe as an ethereal scent. I’m not talking an autumn aroma that invokes nostalgic memories or a specific stench that reminds you of traumatic experiences. I’m not talking a succession of frames streaming like fluid through your memory banks or distinguishable snippets flickering like consecutive flashbacks rolling through a film reel. I’m not talking mechanical reminiscing as a product of some psychological disposition or resurfacing scars brought forth from intensive therapy. I’m not even talking about a scent that hones your mind! I’m talking about the most inexplicable, indescribable, kind of scent that hones your heart… this otherworldly kind of scent that leaves your present perceptions disconnectedly attending to the world but shifts your reactions into intensely reliving the past! I’m talking nine years ago! I’m talking feelings of innocent attraction and distinct anger and vivid hopes and crazy dreams that were all alive and kicking nine Goddamn years ago! Feelings right before the mental breakdowns that broke my mentality and froze my heart! Nine fucking years of letting the cruel and cold mental disorders numb out the feelings in my heart that hurt so bad! And I forgot how much it stung nine years ago before my reality became a shadow tagging behind a haze of obsessive compulsive disorder and eating disorders. But today that haze is clearing! Today the sun is warm and I can feel it shining down and thawing my heart! And my recovering heart is warping back to a time when crushing made me high and love was totally blind! When somebody made a choice that hurt and something better could have worked! And all this heart ache violently tugging at my core is making me realize that maybe, just maybe, I blessedly became mentally ill! I numbed out my feelings as a means of survival, because to become mentally ill was to stunt my emotional development! To stunt the instrument of my emotions was to freeze time on my heart! To put my heart on hold! And maybe icing out the world behind a distorted icy lens was my way of preserving my heart right before it had the chance to break in half! But I am feeling, and I am alive, and I am okay, and I am better than ever. I am feeling it all now.”

doll-heart

– Valerie Parente (9-28-16)

Bright Side In Darkness

July 1, 2016August 18, 2018Leave a comment

roots Dwelling on sadness and pain can create some of the most beautiful and authentic masterpieces of art. Many of my favorite writing pieces, if not all, have stemmed from a dark place. But as far as I am concerned the dark writing pieces without any silver-lining of illumination belong in the privacy of my journal, not on the webpages of my blog.
Ranting and moping into a diary is effortless, while publicly writing about sadness and pain is tricky. On one hand you want to adequately express yourself, but on the other hand you want to contribute something beneficial to society. And it is extremely hard to benefit people with writing so focused on negative topics and dark emotions. Negative writing that is meant for eyes other than your own should be handled very carefully, thoughtfully, and considerately so that the writing does not cross from “comforting” over to “bringing other people down with you”.

This goes back to my motto: Finding beauty in darkness. Darkness without beauty is idle, or, if anything, detrimental. But darkness with beauty- whether that be the beauty of coming away from a hardship having a personal revelation, the beauty of knowing that you are not alone in struggling or feeling badly, or even the beauty of spreading word about something negative to elicit positive change- that is what I believe art is meant to be. You need a bright side to see the beauty in darkness. And when it comes to my art, dismal writing without any silver-lining belongs in the diary.

– Valerie Parente (7-1-16)

Her Bright Pink Shoes

June 22, 2016August 18, 2018Leave a comment

Her Bright Pink Shoes by Valerie Parente

He kept his hood on and hands lodged in the cotton confines of his pockets while maintaining a catatonic stare on the young woman’s feet. Her bright pink shoes were glaringly vibrant against the damp asphalt of the parking lot.
Sick and tired of his optical deviation away from her emotive eyes and onto her pointed toes, the impassioned girl crouched to the pavement and forced herself into his vision. “You,” his good friend affirmed, and the boy didn’t look away, “You are constantly shuffling between pain and fear. When you’re depressed, you don’t care about yourself at all. And when you’re anxious, you care so damn much about your own well-being that you worry yourself sick.”
“Why are you telling me this?” he retaliated through clenched teeth, hoping the aggression in his tone would hide his true desperation for an answer.
“Because!” having captured his full attention she leaped up and stood tall at five feet, “At some point you are going to realize that there is more to you than pain and fear,” she declared, “And you know what? That’s going to confuse the crap outta you. Because you’re not gonna know what to do with yourself.”
And in a fraction of a second, her bright pink shoes scurried away and she was gone.
And he… he didn’t know what to do with himself.

her bright pink shoes

– Valerie Parente (6-22-16)

Grandiosity of the Sick

April 13, 2016June 14, 2016Leave a comment

Grandiosity of the Sick by Valerie Parente

When retention of information is censored through sanity
then attention from the psychologically challenged must rely on vanity.
It is a self-centered way to overcompensate
for what we lack in our mental state.
I call it Grandiosity of the Sick.
The glorified martyr heuristic.
Where those of us who struggle hone our inner pain
through an art quite prone to become vain.
Thinking the anguish we feel is profound.
As if to be miserable puts us on higher ground.
Saying those who reject our thought process
don’t understand because we’re too complex.
Creating beauty from our moping
is a dangerous form of coping.
Because perceiving mental malfunctioning as our best,
can lead to believing we’re only useful in our distress.
But to call this warped mindset a stigma is not entirely fair,
because what could be more admirable than finding comfort in how we’re impaired?