Painting as Ritual: The Art of Giselle Bolotin
Giselle Bolotin is a Germany-born, Australian-based artist whose latest paintings channel mystical and esoteric influences. She trained in art college and taught art, but about a decade ago she experienced a profound “spiritual awakening” that transformed her practice. As Bolotin describes, after that turning point “my art began to change, it begot a life of its own … I am just the instrument now” – a testament to her intuitive, vision-driven process. She cites inspiration from occult and visionary figures (e.g. studying with “esoteric artists… such as Austin Osman Spare, Dion Fortune”), and her recent body of work reflects this otherworldly, archetypal imagination.
Artist Statement
My paintings begin in silence and shadow. In the quiet of my studio I often feel a presence – an ancient voice or a child’s laugh – that begins to paint itself through me. I sit with a canvas and let my hand move, guided by instinct: a shape appears, a creature stirs, a moon or mountain takes form. There is no rush – each image unfolds like a vision. I trust it, watching mossy landscapes and pale figures materialize in layered color, as if drawn from a dream I half-remember.
Color and texture carry the emotion. I splash ochre and indigo like dawn light, let deep greens and rust drape across the surface like forest shadows. Paper, ink and pastel slip into the layers, like secret symbols. In Salt Lake Country I felt the quiet pulse of the earth beneath a painted saltpan; in Circles of Time my brush wove looping rings that felt both endless and eternal. Each stroke is a prayer and a release – gathering memories of childhood woods or starlit nights, unspoken longings and silent joys.
There’s a ritual in my process. I feel the edges between this world and the next soften as I paint, as though I’m sweeping away dust from a hidden altar. Sometimes a familiar appears – the curve of an animal’s back, a veiled face – as if summoned by the journey on the canvas. When the work is done, it hums with a quiet power. I step back and sense that something living remains: a guardian spirit of color and memory, ready to whisper its story to any who will listen.
In the end, my art is an offering. I paint to remember that we are all part of something vast – a web of sky, stone, dream and myth. I want viewers to enter that place on the canvas where the heart speaks without words. To feel the sublime sweep of a painted mountain or moon, and know that beauty and mystery still dwell in the world. I paint from the deepest part of my soul, and I invite you to bring your own story into the painting – to find, in the layers of color and symbol, a spark of your own spirit.
