[ Art • “Alchemy Tree” by Rebecca Rebouché ]

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“To love someone else is easy, but to love what you are, the thing that is yourself, is just as if you were embracing a glowing, red-hot iron; it burns into you and that is very painful. Therefore, to love somebody else in the first place is always an escape which we all hope for, and we all enjoy it when we are capable of it. But in the long run, it comes back on us. You cannot stay away from yourself forever. You have to return, have to come to that experiment, to know whether you really can love. That is the question - whether you can love yourself. And that will be the test.” ― Carl Jung

Life is a journey from space to sea, from you to me, from truth to lie and back again. This alchemy is a mystery. 

The eclipse passed before our eyes and hearts in America yesterday. The shadow of the moon fell on our daydreams, proving you can sleepwalk in the sun, and dance in crescent shadows in the crescent city. 

I’ve decided to release this painting, Alchemy Tree (pictured: middle) as a print on Saatchi. Click here to review the options on paper and canvas. I hope you enjoy.

As ever, Rebecca

Alchemy Tree 48" x 60" acrylic on canvas

This piece sold last week and I composed an email to the collector explaining the inspiration behind the painting. I decided it would be nice to share it here. 

This piece was inspired by the mythological theory that when we are born we actually come down from the heavens to earth, and along the way we absorb the elements of the universe: copper, gold, silver, mercury, iron, etc. 

"Just as a tongue of fire eats up the stubble and into the flames mere dried grass sinks down, their very rootstock will become just like a musty smell, and their blossom itself will go up just like powder, because they have rejected the law of Jehovah of armies, and the saying of the Holy One of Israel they have disrespected."