Ethereal Chaos

I find that the best way for me to entice myself back to painting was reading and researching art, more specifically about painters. I enjoyed reading about their lives and their relationships with the process. There is truly something quite inspiring and humbling about relating one's struggle with those who I look up to.

Most recently I have finished "So Much Longing in so Little Space" by Karl Ove Knausgaard of Edvard Munch and found it comforting to read an art appreciator going on and on not of just Munch's life but also his longwinded passion with his personal pursuit of creativity. It was the jumpstart that I needed to alight the small flame that was diminished quite some time ago. This time I decided to focus on how certain artists decide to approach their way of expressing creativity. Not just painters, though I do find the comparison easier to acknowledge compared to most other mediums, I have really enjoyed looking into writers and their ability to convey ideas through languages, musicians through evoking emotions with sounds. Something that has kept stuck in my mind was a passage from "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" by Wasilly Kandinsky "One art must learn first how another uses its methods, so that the methods may afterwards be applied to the borrower's art from the beginning, and suitably. The artists must no forget that in him lies the power of true application of every method, but that that power must be developed."

It has been years since I read the book but recently with reestablishing my practice I find deeper insights, seeking the methods of others and in a way, to understand how others see and convey meaning to what they do.

When I was at Art school I loved looking through books of artists, seeing their works in full colour but also of their studio and how they move in these spaces. Most of these mediums are objects suspended in time, immovable but able to hold such emotions that could move you, breaking the barrier of bodies and solidity through to the astral realm of ones minds and thoughts. Is it not true that art could move you from one emotional place to another? The joy of being able to see other artists within their spaces of creation is truly a marvel. Watching manifestations of ethereal chaos into tangible reality. Like magic.

Slowly I am collecting some more art books to go through with the hopes that it could highlight some fascinating applications and ulterior perspective, a new pair of glasses to look through. At the moment I am having fun learning the basics of colour, creating a somewhat personal chart, a colour map so to speak based on the elements and what they stand for. I felt that my landscapes has been from an abstracted reality, feeling lost in the world and searching for a place I could understand. The long break has been great in giving me the time to let go of old perceptions that perhaps is no longer useful.