Yearning is one of the most vulnerabe experiences to have, one which you might try your best to suppress or avoid because of how powerless it can make you feel. To yearn for something or someone unattainable reveals how little control you have over certain situations.
Yearning often feels shameful because you’re playing your hand. You’re revealing what makes you weak, whether or not you express it to the object of your yearning. Seeing it within yourself is enough to evoke these feelings of shame because to indulge in them would be to succumb to the feelings of powerlessness that you’ve been trying to resist.
Most of the greatest art throughout history was born from yearning. Whether it was yearning for another person, yearning for answers, or yearning to see/read/listen to something that had yet to be made. All of these creations required an unfettered desire that was then transmuted into something beautiful and revolutionary.
If you were to reframe the way you viewed yearning from a loss of control to an indulgence of your truest self, there’s really nothing left to lose. The yearning becomes less about a specific person or opportunity and more about the ability to connect with yourself in your rawest state.
– Katerina Elefheriou
This theme has been coming up in different ways for me lately. Reading someone else express this perspective really resonated with my own experiences. I wanted to create an image around this idea.
The Portrait
I hadn’t considered before what yearning would look like in a physcial expression. So I googled that exact question and this is what I found: A physcial expression of yearning rarely looks like a dramatic swoon. Instead it is typically a paradox of quiet tension and vulnerability: a person curling slightly inward to protect a tightened chest, a lingering, unbroken gaze, or a nervous habit like biting a lip when their mind drifts to the object of their desire.
This visual is exactly what I would want to reframe.
I considered creating two images, one with the traditional view of what yearning could feel like and one with this contrary perspective. But I ended up only wanting to be contrary. I only stayed with the question, what could it feel like to experience yearning as a way to connect with yourself in your rawest state. I only wanted to use this portrait.
The Background
I had recently pulled this image from Iceland, drawn to the clouds and specifically the scale.
The other image used was from a cloud painting I recently finished. Clouds clearly being significant.
Reflecting on the Final Image
I like how she is in the clouds, like ‘head in the clouds’, and also grounded in a light, joyful way rather than a sinking, bracing way.
Feet firmly on the ground would reflect a more powerful position, and this way of viewing the experience of yearning asks that you relinquish that position or accept a certain degree of powerlessness without completely losing your grounding. The clouds are unrealistic. And her joyful expression mirrors for me how it could feel not to confine your dreams or desires to any box or limit them by what you perceive to be within your control.
