Don’t Change the Subject – Original Abstract Acrylic Painting by Erin McGrath Rieke
About This Artwork
Don’t Change the Subject is an original abstract acrylic painting created in 2021 as part of my Lotus Project, a body of work centered on emotional liberation, personal transformation, and the difficult process of emerging from what has kept us silent.
Color and movement travel freely across the paper, reflecting the moment when buried emotions begin demanding space. The composition resists containment. Marks overlap, interrupt, and redirect one another, creating a visual conversation between suppression and release.
The title speaks to the ways we avoid painful truths by changing the subject, minimizing what happened, or moving away from emotions that feel too difficult to name. The painting asks us to remain present instead. It is an invitation to stop turning away from the experiences that shaped us and to recognize the freedom that can come from finally giving them language.
Within the Lotus Project, the work reflects the lotus flower’s symbolic journey through darkness and sediment before reaching the surface. Emotional liberation does not require denying what lies beneath. It begins by moving through it.
Artwork Details
Artist: Erin McGrath Rieke
Title:Don’t Change the Subject
Year Created: 2021
Medium: Abstract Acrylic on Archival Paper
Image Size: 8 × 10 in
Style: Contemporary Abstract / Expressive Abstraction
Subject: Emotional liberation, truth, personal transformation, release
Series: Lotus Project
Original Artwork: One-of-a-kind
Additional Information
Don’t Change the Subject explores the tension between emotional avoidance and honest expression. Its layered movement suggests thoughts and feelings rising toward the surface after being contained, redirected, or left unspoken.
The work considers what happens when we stop protecting others from our truth and allow ourselves to acknowledge the full weight of our experiences. Emotional liberation is presented not as a single moment of resolution, but as an ongoing practice of naming, confronting, and releasing what we have carried.
As with much of my work, Don’t Change the Subject leaves room for personal interpretation. Viewers are invited to bring their own experiences of silence, recognition, transformation, and freedom to the piece.
Information for Collectors
My abstract and mixed-media paintings explore mental health, trauma, identity, healing, and resilience through intuitive mark-making, layered movement, and expressive color. Each work is created entirely by hand as a unique original.
Collectors interested in contemporary abstract art, emotionally expressive work, personal transformation, or artwork exploring liberation and recovery may also connect with other pieces from the Lotus Project by Erin McGrath Rieke.
Don’t Change the Subject – Original Abstract Acrylic Painting by Erin McGrath Rieke
About This Artwork
Don’t Change the Subject is an original abstract acrylic painting created in 2021 as part of my Lotus Project, a body of work centered on emotional liberation, personal transformation, and the difficult process of emerging from what has kept us silent.
Color and movement travel freely across the paper, reflecting the moment when buried emotions begin demanding space. The composition resists containment. Marks overlap, interrupt, and redirect one another, creating a visual conversation between suppression and release.
The title speaks to the ways we avoid painful truths by changing the subject, minimizing what happened, or moving away from emotions that feel too difficult to name. The painting asks us to remain present instead. It is an invitation to stop turning away from the experiences that shaped us and to recognize the freedom that can come from finally giving them language.
Within the Lotus Project, the work reflects the lotus flower’s symbolic journey through darkness and sediment before reaching the surface. Emotional liberation does not require denying what lies beneath. It begins by moving through it.
Artwork Details
Artist: Erin McGrath Rieke
Title:Don’t Change the Subject
Year Created: 2021
Medium: Abstract Acrylic on Archival Paper
Image Size: 8 × 10 in
Style: Contemporary Abstract / Expressive Abstraction
Subject: Emotional liberation, truth, personal transformation, release
Series: Lotus Project
Original Artwork: One-of-a-kind
Additional Information
Don’t Change the Subject explores the tension between emotional avoidance and honest expression. Its layered movement suggests thoughts and feelings rising toward the surface after being contained, redirected, or left unspoken.
The work considers what happens when we stop protecting others from our truth and allow ourselves to acknowledge the full weight of our experiences. Emotional liberation is presented not as a single moment of resolution, but as an ongoing practice of naming, confronting, and releasing what we have carried.
As with much of my work, Don’t Change the Subject leaves room for personal interpretation. Viewers are invited to bring their own experiences of silence, recognition, transformation, and freedom to the piece.
Information for Collectors
My abstract and mixed-media paintings explore mental health, trauma, identity, healing, and resilience through intuitive mark-making, layered movement, and expressive color. Each work is created entirely by hand as a unique original.
Collectors interested in contemporary abstract art, emotionally expressive work, personal transformation, or artwork exploring liberation and recovery may also connect with other pieces from the Lotus Project by Erin McGrath Rieke.
