Art and Me..

Several years ago I read Oscar Wilde’s book, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”. It had both, thoroughly mesmerized and faintly scared me. That was 12 years ago, but the familiarity is unmistakable. Every time I see a painting I am reading the Dorian Gray. And it seems like I am trying to unravel the cryptic truth they are challenging me with. People have asked me several times “What is art? Is it reality? Is it an artist’s perception of reality? Or is it just something that cannot be encompassed in words?” I wouldn’t know, and even if I did I wouldn’t be able to say. I chose the canvas when I realized one word beside another could not do justice to the all the feelings and thoughts of the conscious and unconscious mind. Art is all these and more.

It’s not always real, I think. Mostly its want I want to see, sometimes what I don’t want to see and a few other times, what I cannot escape. The bygone moments from the past; the expectations of the future, all wanting to be immortalized. As if it was this desire of theirs to exist forever, gave me the mesmerizing power to create them. Create serene beauty in a violent storm or eternal beauty in a dying flame. Art is beauty. The infinite stretches of sky beckoning me to pour life into its desolate soul, splash it with colors and make it alive. Art is life.

As I stand and watch those lines emerging from an abyss of nothingness, numbing my senses with its own ethereal form, it makes me wonder, ‘am I really creating it? Or does art have a mind of its own?’ The lines are there for that’s how they were meant to be. Taking me to the dizzying heights of artistic ecstasy, where every line is definite, perfect in its place. The reverberating colors hypnotic enough that, even the wildest imagination is a suffocating reality. I could own up all the pain, the unfathomable sorrow, the darkest of pleasures, the purest of joys. They are all mine.

But in a fraction of a moment the emptiness returns. Reality that was there a moment ago is now a floating illusion. Beauty is dissolved in a myriad of meaningless colors, slowly fading away into oblivion. Art, so full of beauty and life; so distant and obscure.

Now I am scared. What are these paintings trying to tell me? Each time it’s a different thing. When I try to reach closer and understand them, the lines blur, I only see colors scattered around me. Where words left a gap in my thoughts, paintings tear away parts of it. Now alone, collecting the scattered pieces of thought, wondering if there will be another chance, I hear these words, I recognize them now and it’s the same thing, what every piece of art I ever saw was screaming. The same words 12 yrs ago I read in Wilde’s book “All art is quite useless”.