Free to Dream

When I had my first show, I was approached by a woman who led me over to one of my paintings. She asked me:

“Is there something written down here?” Pointing to the bottom of the canvas.

To which I kindly replied:

“There is, if you want there to be” with a smile on my face, of course. It was amazing to me that her brain pulled out words from that entanglement of brush strokes.

The curious and beautiful thing with abstract art, is that people will see “things” in the work whether you intend it or not.

I’ve heard so many times, “Is this a window?” Sure. “Is this a lake reflecting a tree line? It could be.

The answer is never no.

Although at first, I’ll admit, this bothered me. Since I have my own strong feelings about the meaning behind the work. Now I can appreciate it. The thing is, with esoteric art, why should we strive for inaccessibility? If someone needs to relate the work to something they’re familiar with in order to access it, why not?

I came to this conclusion through my own experience with certain music and literary scholarship. I was hearing music from composers such as Morton Feldman and John Cage, and feeling ostracized from it. I found the music so opaque that I had to read about it to understand the “meaning”. I don’t have a musically trained ear, so this is my honest admission. Similarly, when reading academic writing from philosophers and scholars such as Merleau- Ponty or Husserl, who’s ideas are very inspiring to me, I find the language to be incredibly dense, and I have to struggle through it. Eventually, I decided to stop seeking clarification, and instead extract my own meaning. Which is what people seem to do with my paintings also.

For me, it is important, that we can bestow the beauty of an idea on any willing mind. And object any pretense or exclusivity. All are welcome to explore the depths of their own mind as they wish. The work is the vehicle to take you there.