the future of art-- art of the future

Paintings are meant as seductions. Each is a device to beguile and entice the senses, and in this age of scalded nerve endings, advertising excesses and entertainment overload, it’s not easy. Paintings are tangible entities not likely to change for several lifetimes, so they’re able to bond with the mind of their owner, becoming more real and present over time instead of fading into the background. Initially, however, they must cut through the fog of digital goo that surrounds us all to impinge the mind and enter consciousness. That means they must catch the eye of the inattentive and distracted, which describes a great many who don’t usually expect too much from art. It’s an interesting challenge.

Art is a collaboration, not a one-way street. The artist contributes the image and the viewer is receptive, and so the completed circuit is made. The often struggling, independent artist feels pressure to meet an audience’s prior expectations, just hoping to stay in their studio. Even so, some instead choose to express themselves in real time, and since to be in the moment is to be ahead of general awareness, it’s the more visionary but much riskier path. It supposes that the evolving consciousness of a coming generation appears on the easel first, the product of isolated effort and self-revelation. It works because we’re all connected, and painting can be a source of insight into the mind and vision of a coming generation. As peculiar as this sounds, examples abound.

The experience of art requires audience participation, and the conscious presence of the viewer. The artist probes for access, chooses images and applies techniques that maximize penetration, that slip past the perceptual thresholds and mental turnstiles to pull at the attention and engage the machinery of recognition and awareness. A successful work of art resonates, rings in the senses like a tuning fork, a deep visceral sensation never fully described in words. Works of art can suggest new possibilities to tired, bored eyes, and like a water can in a dry window box, can cause new growth to appear in the form of more detail and texture in everyday life.

Look at all art available, and wait until you recognize yourself, you’ll know. Some artist somewhere has found a key that unlocks how you think and feel, and others, all around, are having the same sensation. Art is part of human mentality, and though it seems to have lost its way over several generations, yoked and compromised by advertising, actively obscured and declawed by federal subsidy, still it rises to the surface, honest and direct, the fulcrum of personal sanctity and self-determination. Buy a painting from an artist in your area and hang it in your home where you see it everyday. Participate in a movement, and reclaim your ability to see for yourself what the world has to offer.

windows and bridges -- art’s practical functions

We all live in boxes we build ourselves. We begin construction at birth, and by now it’s as big as all we’ve experienced. Much of it is inherited, and in the beginning cues come from family members, and then from teachers and peers, and there’s the amount of travel and stuff read, all of it altogether. The size of the box and its contents varies immensely person to person, so much so that conversations can be difficult between them. Windows and bridges are what’s needed, yet somehow the internet has been slamming doors and removing connections back and forth, drawing in the cell walls on everyone’s already pre-packaged sit-com existence. Does any of this sound familiar?

Art won’t answer the question of why we’re here, no matter how much we’re willing to spend, but it does offer questions. These questions enter the nervous system somewhere below a conscious level, and art on the wall is broadcasting a strange set of signals for internal recognition circuits to sort out. Without being aware of it, looking at art refreshes and recalibrates the senses so that the birds will be singing in the parking lot when you leave an art museum. They’ve been there all day but you didn’t hear them going in, and there might be other stuff you’ll begin to notice all at once, clouds in the sky, shadows on the lawn. Art can open a window but it’s up to you to crawl through and begin seeing what’s always been there. Owning and living with art is a technique, a method and plan, to become more open to the world.

I was amused at an article setting out to review the symbolism in Picasso’s ‘guernica,’ when it’s pretty certain that every human who ever lived, going all the way back to the stone age, would get the gist right away. Visual art doesn’t require translation, and we understand painters without speaking their language. In the turbulent goulash of images all around us, enduring original art can be a touchstone, an oasis of genuine human value in a commercial grey-zone, and a lifeline of affirmation for individuals who have become increasingly isolated in the digital crowd. Chances are if you find yourself liking a particular artist, let’s say someone from your hometown, it’s possible others who also like the same artist will share similar values, and might turn out to be friends. Art is a way to represent yourself, so that others might guess less about who you are, and so that you might know them a bit better. Windows and bridges for sale.