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.