Chiaroscuro - Jonathan Ogden (Lyric Video)

Chiaroscuro is term used in painting: it refers to the strong contrast of light and dark, often used to add drama to a scene or highlight a particular part of the image. A technique popularised by artists like Caravaggio. This is the only instrumental song from my album, NIGHT, and I wanted to give it a title which refers to the light and dark theme that runs throughout the project. Sometimes it's the dark scenes in our life that make us stop and take notice of the moments the light gets in.

Included in the song is a voice memo from a conversation with my Mum in the last few months of her life. We were sharing about the difficult things we face and she encouraged me to keep turning to God, and trusting in scripture. As someone who knew she was nearing the end of her life, it meant so much more to hear those words. It holds extra weight when somebody has lived a full life and still says that the words of the Bible are true and nothing else compares to it. I also appreciated the realist encouragement that "it's hard, but whoever said it would be easy?".

This song also features my friend Curtis Man on Bassoon. I feel like it adds such beautiful light into the composition. Thank you also to Paige David for her help on the visuals for this song! It's amazing what you can do with an iPhone torch and some flowers from the supermarket!

Stream NIGHT: slinky.to/night