Inner Child/Climate Change [ 36” x 48” ]· Carbon pencil, blackening watercolours, and inks on paper mounted to canvas · [ 2021–2025 ]
The mask of the false self, .
This painting places the inner child seated at a small table that has become a fragile island in a fracturing world. She sits quietly, surrounded by fish and other sea creatures pulled from their environment—some still glistening with water, others already dull and drying on the wooden surface. Fish, shrimp, and other sea creatures lie scattered among half-eaten shells, their once-living forms now still and exposed. The child’s hands rest on the table holding a knife, nearly but not brushing the edge of a fish as if trying to understand what has been taken from the water.
Behind her, the background splits into night and day: one painting half a deep, starless black that bleeds into the edges of the canvas, the other painting a harsh, over-bright daylight that feels too hot, too empty. The blackening drips rise from the table and the sea life, creeping upward like rising water or spreading heat, saturating the air around the child. Her face is unguarded—wide eyes fixed outward, expression caught between curiosity and quiet grief.
The work confronts the inner child's place in the climate crisis: innocence seated at a table of loss, surrounded by what has been pulled from its home, forced to witness the consequences of a world she did not break. The split night/day behind her reflects the unnatural rhythm of a planet out of balance—endless dark and relentless light, both suffocating in their own way. Yet in the deepest blackening, a tiny grin emerges —the fragile, stubborn promise that even in the midst of what has been taken, something can still grow.
A meditation on vulnerability, inherited loss, the slow theft of natural worlds, and the enduring optimism that refuses to let the child inside us stop seeing, stop feeling, stop hoping—dark yet eternally hopeful in its refusal to look away from what is dying on the table.
Dark yet hopeful,
Studio view, or related works: blairaiken@raincage.com
Inspiration & Personal Connection
This painting draws inspiration from Edvard Munch’s *The Child and Death* (1899). In Munch’s haunting work, a young girl stands beside her dying mother, confronting mortality with raw, wide-eyed vulnerability — the brutal intersection of innocence and loss. The psychological mask of the inner child is a protective, often, unconscious persona—frequently referred to as the "false self" or ego—adopted to hide vulnerability, avoid rejection, and ensure safety based on childhood survival strategies.
In my version, I replace the passing mother with the Earth itself. The child now faces not a single human death, but the slow, unfolding crisis of our planet — a different kind of maternal figure slipping away. The painting becomes a meditation on what we are leaving behind for the next generation.
I have worked my whole life to bring realistic approaches to energy and sustainability. I am not a crazed “greeny,” but I feel deeply that we can — and must — do better. Through the blackening layers, I trace the weight of consequence, the quiet grief of inheritance, and the urgent responsibility we carry as parents and stewards. The inner child in all of us stands watching, asking what kind of world we are handing down.
Yet even in this moment of reckoning, a faint gleam persists — a quiet reminder that awareness, care, and honest effort can still plant seeds of healing and hope for those who come after us.
Dark yet hopeful.
Studio view, or related works: blairaiken@raincage.com
Dark yet hopeful.
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Edvard Munch, The Child and Death, 1899