you ask, dear earthworm, why art is so often shadowy, even dark?
art at its most profound, i think, deals with archetypal human dilemmas, and though not prescriptive it could be said to be a way of defining and containing these dilemmas, re-drawing them to a more human scale.
for myself, art is a place to seek restoration (as a fragmented, and dislocated, being). it is a kind of sanctuary: a place of wholeness and repose when i cannot find resolution for my soul any other way. the contained world of a painting is where i discover that what i do - no, what i am - has a purpose.
my answer being (in a roundabout way, honouring the meander and its fertile wanderings) that art, however shadowy, however dark, is actually solace. perhaps it is, as well, a kind of bacterium-sized protest at the incoherence of being alive. the darker it is, the further the painter has ventured down the rabbit-hole, chasing something which disappears and reappears, but can sometimes be persuaded to linger briefly in the confines of form.
2008-04-09 @ 18:57