so much about communication seems to me taken for granted, where in closer look the above questions might help us understand better why so many troubles arise out of communication.
but even if restricted to art, what drives an artist to make art? what drives others to look at it and try to `get' whatever is `in' the artwork? for me about my own work, a few things are clear.
first of all, making art is a way to communicate with myself, comparable on some level to making music. second, its communication is on a semi-conscious level and nonverbal. third, i most often strive to make the communication broader than just for me. some part of me wants to share with others, for this i try to make things visible in such a way that at some point i get the feeling: yes, an interested `listener' can hear/feel somewhat what it emanates.
so then what are these communications about? to me art is about life, but also about beauty/nonbeauty/patterns/nonpatterns (i don't know how to put it into words really sharply, this is makeshift). and strangely enough, i feel life is about art too, in the sense that to live one's life in a spiritual way to me seems like working on a painting, step by step, correcting errors & superficial patches etc., in order to arrive at more depth, luminosity, compassion.
but the dark sides of life then? are they to be ignored or what? what to depict? holocaust images or soulful serenity? or both? human folly & debauchery, human misery, some of it selfchosen...or hollywood happiness and clichés and beautiful landscapes and harmonious abstracts...or just anything looking `cool' that hasn't been done before for the sake of artistic originality?
enough questions here to merit one of my favourite gauguins:
paul gauguin, where do we come from? what are we? where are we going?
