Friday, May 14, 2010

What I Learned On Our Art Trip.

The meaning behind modern art: I knew an epiphany was on it's way since I went to MoMA in New York and yesterday in the National Gallery, I fiiiinally found THE definition. A short film on Jackson Pollack there described his pictures as "expression rather than illustration". And BOOM, realisation burst forth within me as strongly the allegations against Terry Richardson. I really got it. Jackson Pollack's paintings, and I'm just using one specific example here, aren't stories and they aren't decorative objects per se because: its not even about the paintings. Its like they're not exactly meant to be looked at because they themselves are only byproducts. The REAL art is the person behind those paintings in a moment in which they felt something. Its the feeling that IS the art, not the jumble of enamel and slabs of paint thats been flung onto the canvas. To me it's like when on hearing the name of a person you know, you don't think about every individual letter or picture how they look: you hear an overall sound, an expression. You hear how you feel about that person or who they are or what they've been through, not how the name is written or what font it's in.
It reminds me of that quote from Factory Girl, when she says: "You're being a little stupid. I mean, don't you think it's intriguing? You know, it may just be a painting, but it's an idea. And the man behind that idea is what's interesting". That "man", that human, was always there, but it's what happened to have been ejected from experiences or emotions or ideas in the form of something solid** is what brought attention TO his mind and abilities. And that's when it really becomes amazing. Just as that line from a film I've seen forty times has always been there but I just hadn't realised what it exactly meant before now.
Your art grows with you, the reason you explore different materials and styles because you yourself are growing as a person. The art I was doing when I was 15 is totally different from now, but I don't believe its because I've practised really. Because its that every time I turn a corner with shading or painting or making something look 3-D, it comes out of nowhere. Its totally uncontrollable because it's mental, not physical. It's my mind that has grown and opened like a slapped clam, not my hands, which have OFC remained freakishly small and hobbit-like. Just like I wouldn't have been able to write this blog two years ago, not because I'd be too young or that I'd have nothing to say or that I'd be too self-concious but because now my PERCEPTION itself has changed.
Anyway, I felt like I had to write that little epiphany out to express the B0Omp0W that happened in my clam-brain yesterday, before I dive into my Hamlet Question asap!

** NOT THAT. :L

♥♥♥

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