Expressions Of Art - The Logic Of Consciousness

Summer 2018

“Art washes from the Soul the Dust of Everyday Life” - Pablo Picasso


Recently I was reflecting on elements of my art. I began to examine how it often represents an experience that is difficult or unable to be characterized with sufficient descriptions using the written or spoken language.

Thoughts of how the elements, forms, shapes, and visual connotations of an envisioned image capture compose themselves imbued with a particular expression of my “felt life” experiences and how this might be brought forth to intended viewers.

Thoughts encompass the spirit in each of my images and question; Are there similarities in this substance or does each image project its own unique essence?

Often I aspire to express feelings, instincts or expressions of life that are not necessarily that which I was experiencing at the time but how I felt about the composition and my desire to “project” that essence into the art work.

What is the nature of an essence, are there more than a singular essence within the composition, and, if so, which essence is dominant and do the others enhance or detract?

Considerable deliberations, haltingly, over much of life’s span conceiving this elemental thought and, often times, evolving sudden bursts of revelations, assist in advancing this awareness.

So how do we describe feelings, emotions, instincts, “felt life”, abstractions, equivalence, and clarity of thought, nuances, connotations, and the like when the use of spoken/written word cannot convey these subjective characteristics and the crux and meanings of these facets of life?  A sense unfolds that this is a larger aspect of art.

So what have I developed regarding these thoughts? How to convey some form of perception to these?

Observations are that art is “expressive”, a language term that goes some distance towards “crystallizing” these experiences.

The mind develops symbolic descriptions instead of verbal definitions that are lacking. This paradox into the ethereal nature of truth, of value, of beauty and striving to furnish tangible illumination require that symbolic representation is necessary to imbue this sense of meaning.


Yet so many questions……

• What is it about these symbols that fill our dreams and imaginations that fulfill our “inner sense” through an interaction with them in our lives?
• How and why do our mental constructions manifest themselves to enliven our lives?
• Where do these emanate from, these tenuous moments of unformulated perceptions, that, briefly felt, intrude into our consciousness … “the bright, twisted threads of symbolic envisagement, imagination, thought-memory and reconstructed memory, belief beyond experience, dream, make-believe, hypothesis, philosophy—the whole creative process of ideation, metaphor, and abstraction that makes human life an adventure in understanding?”

This gives an expressive nature to our lives.

• What other elements might be ascribed to art that gives a sense of its intangible nature?
• Does art express actual feelings or just ideas of feelings?
• How do these expressions and the symbolism within art coincide with each other?
• Is the symbolism the method of which the expression within is developed?
• How is this abstracted from the form in the art?
• Does this abstraction allow for removing all the usual meanings of the art work and open it to new ones inspired by each viewer’s “inner self” such that this “logic” is not obscured by irrelevant issues?
• What of insight as an elemental nature of art?
• What of time, space, chaos, abyss, abstracted in mystic symbols, passing as well?

All these symbolic questions require the mediation of an interpretive mind. Our minds open potential for infinite dimensions of imaginative reality.

Further, how does our imagination respond to the “values” inherent to “Art”? Is it personal, imaginative, associative and logical, but colored with affects, bodily rhythms and dreams? Is our imagination counter-factual, analogous, of interpretive emotions, flights of thought and creativity?

The “doors” of perception often allow the symbolism to manifest in myriad fashions.

Will we follow a path where this aspect of life is meaningful or will this erode over time and the human essence no longer valued or even tolerated of such emotive values and instead place value on thoughts of pure reasoning, no longer pursuing anything else?

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

— T.S. Eliot

So I continue to pursue these many ruminations of my own mind. Wondering at particular stimulations I have to feel a certain way when beholding distinct compositions. What is it that presents various feelings, often fleeting, that I contemplate when beholding my compositions? How might I convey these implied expressions using the two dimensional plane of vision before me? Would a visual metaphor be more apt than the literal visual translation as it appears and allow viewing with abstract thoughts?

At present, I believe that each art work of mine, to me and to viewers, may abstract our individual collective experiences and derive particular aspects of these for unique contemplations on each work of my art.

These abstracts bear concepts that have no written language words as valid descriptives. “Felt life”, the life of our feelings which have no names, need to be presented to our senses and our intuition abilities as the written word cannot describe this to our consciousness.

Art, as I sense it, is the expression of these feelings and my ability to convey this in each art work grows with each new revelation and abstraction.


Dusty

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