WHEN THE EARTH REMEMBERS
2025
When the Earth Remembers
I never realized my bones were made of timber. Or that sap coated my joints. The ground holds all the earth’s tales. Screams mulch into whispers. Cloaked in grime.
The light is a trick of the surface, rooted in the undertow.
I got so caught up in the way it flickers, I forgot my legs can no longer lift out of the mud, that each step plants me deeper into the earth. Scrubbing myself clean peels back skin. I fear the inscriptions within the layers. Veins seeping into the dust.
If you stop for a moment. You might notice the ant farm burrowing into your chest. There is a trail of creatures picking apart the rust that crumbles with every movement. Turning sorrow into soil.
Vines crawl into the wounds of the land. The clay drinks where the stones are split. Echoes of memories are allowed to dance across the skyline.
We were never meant to understand the stars. We were only meant to slowly become them.
S. Raelle
2025
When the Earth Remembers
The series When the Earth Remembers was developed during the final year of a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2025. The central premise explores memory not as purely internal, but as something held by the world around us. Comprised primarily of oil on canvas, these works examine the relationship between the female form and the landscape, merging humanity and the environment as equals. Through techniques of colour abstraction and expressionism, the figures are portrayed as if they are being consumed by, or emerging from, the Earth itself.
This body of work was influenced by a resurgence of survivor’s guilt following a significant personal loss. Guilt is a complex emotion that can alter one’s sense of self and perspective on life. In response, the act of painting served as a lament and a form of salvation, a container to explore the healing rhythms of nature. The work is grounded in the belief that we are not separate from the Earth; whether through physicality, spirituality, or memory, we eventually return to it.
The landscapes in this series function as liminal spaces, transitional environments through which the figures wander. The paintings themselves act as similar vessels, holding the questions and ideas I have about the world. Likewise, the figures are liminal beings caught in a state of becoming; they exist within the chaotic texture of the canvas, emerging from it while never fully separate from it.
S. Raelle 2025