Contemporary art could be anything, it’s like their motto, and uncle Aristotle explained there might not be much traction there. Owning art has always been fond of painting, a thirty thousand year tradition, and its uncanny ability to communicate mind to mind. Painting isn’t the only art form, but is itself broad and deep enough to be considered separately, and its unique physical properties make it conveniently portable and easily owned.
All paintings are a design in color on a flat surface. The artist sometimes arranges the colors in a clever way that somehow reminds the viewer of something they’ve seen before, a smiling lady, a placid lake, a pot of flowers, but no one is ever fooled. That isn’t the point. In making the painting the artist encodes enough of their character and singular point of view to make each painting a perpetual conversation, constantly engaging the viewer’s attention. Better art does this better and has more to say.
For example -- if you’ve never been to the southern rim of the grand canyon all grand canyon paintings will look pretty much alike to you, just vertical stacks of horizontal bands, nothing special. If you’ve stood at the lookout for a while, sunlight and shadow, crisp clear air, an hour’s movement of the sun among the silhouettes, you’re probably ready to head up to Taos to crawl the galleries. Lots of paintings of the grand canyon, lots, but in front of one you feel the vertical rush of air against your face as you stare out into that fat slice of eternity, registering just the slightest tinge of vertigo. This is the one to take back to Indiana.
Real life and art aren’t separate but play against each other, inform each other, embrace and enhance each other, and if an artist nails you with some deep down response to something you both have seen, maybe even finds a place inside you didn’t know was there, something will click in your head and painting, the whole business, will make suddenly make sense to you.
All paintings are a design in color on a flat surface. The artist sometimes arranges the colors in a clever way that somehow reminds the viewer of something they’ve seen before, a smiling lady, a placid lake, a pot of flowers, but no one is ever fooled. That isn’t the point. In making the painting the artist encodes enough of their character and singular point of view to make each painting a perpetual conversation, constantly engaging the viewer’s attention. Better art does this better and has more to say.
For example -- if you’ve never been to the southern rim of the grand canyon all grand canyon paintings will look pretty much alike to you, just vertical stacks of horizontal bands, nothing special. If you’ve stood at the lookout for a while, sunlight and shadow, crisp clear air, an hour’s movement of the sun among the silhouettes, you’re probably ready to head up to Taos to crawl the galleries. Lots of paintings of the grand canyon, lots, but in front of one you feel the vertical rush of air against your face as you stare out into that fat slice of eternity, registering just the slightest tinge of vertigo. This is the one to take back to Indiana.
Real life and art aren’t separate but play against each other, inform each other, embrace and enhance each other, and if an artist nails you with some deep down response to something you both have seen, maybe even finds a place inside you didn’t know was there, something will click in your head and painting, the whole business, will make suddenly make sense to you.
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