The Thinker - A reflection by Emma Woolley
Sunday light
It was a Sunday. The 26th of May, 2024. Same setup as before, tabletop easel, smaller scale, sitting down. That quiet kind of painting. Intimate. I was still deep in that rhythm I’d started with Parma Violet, chasing this feeling of wonder and connection. Wanting to see what would come next.
I wasn’t planning anything big. I was just looking. Through hundreds of reference images, hoping something would hit. And then I found him.
This face, this expression.
Eyes lifted, looking up and to the left.
Hands under chin.
Thinking.
Dreaming.
I didn’t know what the story was, but I knew there was one. And that was enough.
The Thinker, 2024
A quieter energy
What drew me in was the emotion. And the hair. Wild. Unruly. A character. But not in the same way as Parma Violet, who was all sugar-rush and sharp edges. This one wasn’t loud. He was quiet. But not passive.
The brushstrokes in The Thinker still bounce. Still jump. That’s just me, my energy is always in the paint. But there’s a difference here. A kind of calmness in how I approached it. Probably because I was sat down. Grounded. Not rushing. Not pushing for an outcome. Just letting it happen.
And what happened was still. Reflective.
A little bit serene.
And maybe that was me too.
Half-finished, half-formed
I started it on the 26th of May, but I didn’t finish it. I left it, completely unplanned, and didn’t return to it for fifteen days. That’s rare for me. I don’t usually abandon a piece mid-way. But I think I just ran out of light that day. Literally. And maybe metaphorically too.
Back then, I was working in a space where the light faded fast. I always tried to start early, catch the day. But by 3 or 4pm, colours would go muddy. And that was that.
So I picked it back up on the 15th of August and carried it through.
A different kind of face
This wasn’t a face in purple. No palette knives, no candyfloss hair. This one had a natural dark brown, streaked with greys in the beard. A soft yellow shirt. A background that looks grey at a glance, but hides mint green if you really look. One of my favourites.
The mint green even makes its way into the face. You probably wouldn’t notice it unless you were me, but it’s there. Holding the whole thing in a wash of gentle quiet.
He’s not eccentric. He’s not stylised. He’s not even exaggerated. He’s just, him. And yet I see lots of people in this one. Sometimes he reminds me of John Lennon. Sometimes my dad. Sometimes someone I’ve just forgotten but still remember the feeling of. That’s what I love about this painting. He holds multitudes.
The Thinker, 2024
The name comes later
Like all of my pieces, the name came at the end. I don’t force it. I finish, I sit back, I look. I let it tell me.
And this one said: The Thinker.
Of course it did. Chin in hands. Eyes cast up. It was only after naming it that I remembered Rodin’s The Thinker, that huge, heroic sculpture I’d once studied to death in uni.
Same gesture. Same mood.
Same posture of quiet introspection.
Only this one’s mine.
And in paint.
The Thinker Le Penseur (1904) in the Musée Rodin in Paris source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thinker
Artist: Auguste Rodin
Year: 1904
Medium: Bronze
The grief underneath
Was it about grief? I think so, yes. Not consciously. Not directly. But the calmness of it, the palette, the restraint, they reflect where I was at. I’d been through the worst of it. I was coming back to myself. Or maybe not back. Maybe forward. Into a different version of myself.
Because you don’t go back after a loss like that. You just become.
Someone else.
Someone calmer.
Someone new.
And I think that shows in this painting.
That phrase, the sound of silence, kept echoing as I looked at him. Not just as a mood, but as a memory. That song by Simon & Garfunkel was a constant in my childhood. A favourite of both my mum and dad. Me and Ben were brought up on it. But my dad didn’t just sing those songs, he played them on his Yamaha FG180, the same beautiful guitar I still have to this day.
He was an incredible guitarist.
He had an amazing band in the '80s when we were growing up in Moseley.
That guitar is irreplaceable now.
Because he is.
And so this painting holds that silence. That ache. That quiet knowing.
“People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening…”
The Thinker doesn’t shout.
But he says everything.
The Sound Of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel (1964)
You can find limited edition Giclée prints of The Thinker in the shop:
