Carousel of Progress- Original Painting by Leah Nadeau

DESCRIPTION: Carousel of Progress is 30 x 30 inches, acrylic and oil on canvas. INSPIRATION: Carousel of Progress was inspired by becoming yourself again. Lately, I have been looking through childhood photographs and feeling a deep sense of tenderness and grief for the girl I was before she learned to edit herself. That same tension has been appearing in my painting process. My earliest layers are often the most instinctive, playful, and vulnerable. Then I begin adding paint built to protect what is underneath. In this piece, the first layers never fully disappear. They remain visible and vulnerable. This painting is about realizing that progress is not always a straight line forward. Sometimes we circle back to the same memories, fears, and former versions of ourselves, seeing them differently each time. Sometimes embracing who we are means returning to who we were before the world told us to be smaller.