Award Winning Artist: Dazzala T. Cofield

www.ArtPal.com/dazz17

Artist Statement:

After the passing of my mother 2004 and father in 2011, a shift took place in my desire to create. I explored mezzotint as the media to reflect the rich, black, undertones of grief. This process of rocking the plate created a meditative motion, which awakened my subconscious mind that longs to be with the ones we lost. I thought that through this process of drawing light, light that represents life, the essence of human existence is portrayed through each print. Scraping, metal, burnishing plates allowed a purification process to take place in my soul. I experienced a healing from nightmares, and visions of how life use to be.
Now my work has shifted into a desire to focus on a more spiritual context. After the passing of my mother, it took years for me to come out of the darkness of grief. Recently, I discovered a spiritual awakening in me. Through life changing events, was the catalyst to propel me to explore spiritual themes and Christian concepts. When I discovered this, a door was open to visions and dreams.
In the past, black ink dominated my work, but now my work has color light and a re-birth of dreams, visions and hope. I recalled my trip to Italy and remembered spiritual images that were everywhere and the feeling of rebirth and renewal that I felt for my art. I decided to awaken my senses and research modernism and merge the use of Christian and Renaissance themes. My desire allowed me to produce a body of paintings that shows the influence of modernism and takes spiritual dreams and visions and brings them to life on canvas.
Instead of mezzotint, I selected acrylic paint and graphite for the media. These images have color, passion and aspiration in them. I also studied Renaissance work and also different Christian themes. These Christian ideas are embedded in the works of art. This is important to me because I want to create a reawakening with the arts and to discover the thoughts that are deep in our subconscious.