Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Art is a subtle undercurrent running beneath the surface of Stolen's story. Gemma's mother makes a living buying and selling priceless paintings from foreign countries, while Gemma tries to draw pictures of her family as a way of coping with her isolation.
Most of all, though, there's Ty, who embodies the theme by literally becoming a part of his lifelike, natural work. While we have to admit that there's something a little weird about coating the insides of outbuildings with homemade paint and getting naked and painting your whole body, the imagery of Ty's art strikes a chord with not only Gemma but us as well.
For one thing, Ty's art is an expression of his love of the land's natural beauty. He makes paint from the rocks, moss, and flowers surrounding the property, coats the walls of the outbuilding in it, and adds bits of vegetation to make it more lifelike. When he makes his masterpiece at the end of Gemma's time with him, he even makes himself a part of the landscape, covering himself with "paint and sand, flowers and leaves" (76.2). This love for the land matters, particularly because Ty is such a dark figure in other ways.
On her flight out of Australia, Gemma comes to realize, when she looks down onto the landscape, that the purpose of Ty's art is to become one with the land: "From up there, so far above, the land looked like a painting," she says, "one of your paintings […] I could almost imagine the land was you … stretched out and huge below me" (103.9). In this moment of recognizing Ty's connection to the land through his art, we also see how connected Gemma has become to Ty—she understands him.
But, Ty has another purpose to his art besides becoming a part of the desert landscape. He also uses it as an object lesson to show Gemma what she's missing in her life in the city. "This is what I wanted to show you," he tells her. "The beauty of this land. You need to see how you're a part of it" (76.3). Insofar as Ty loves the land and Gemma, he wants her to connect to it, too, to love the land the way he does. He wants her to feel it would be ridiculous to go home after having seen such beauty.
One thing is certain: The Australian desert is completely unlike anything Gemma has known in her former life: "My head was reeling a little, from the colors and the light […] That room was so different from all the other paintings I'd seen with Mum, so much more real somehow" (75.38). And while she's only there because she's been kidnapped, there are ways in which being here feels "more real," which makes it hard for us to think of her experience with Ty in simple "good" and "bad" terms.