The Feeling of Art

What do you see when you look at art?

Is it a picture of something? A crude form of outdated photography? Are you not sure what you’re looking at, just weird shapes and colors spread across the canvas? Or even just all it literally is - marks of paint on canvas material? Hopefully you see more than that, and if you are here reading this, most likely you appreciate the deeper side of art. To look at a painting, outside of a pictorial landscape or portrait, to really see beyond what is immediately perceived by the eyes, is to truly experience it. I believe art should be an experience. Whether that take the form of a deeply moving emotional journey, or simply a smirk of mild entertainment. A painting should touch you in some way, cause you to feel something, anything.

Not everyone gets art, and I pity those people who can walk past a painting without so much as a second look at a piece that for another person is so deeply moving that they find new hope in life, a purpose, a reason to change, or pause to reflect on life. It is for these people (and primarily myself) that I paint. The emotions I convey and try to imbue into my work hopefully will touch someone the same way it does me, or even in a totally different way. But whatever the emotion felt, it’s purpose has been accomplished, someone experienced it.

Next time you look at a piece of art, if you feel something about it, give it the time and attention it so deserves. Find something in the art and in yourself. Even if it is a negative emotion, take time and sit with it. Find some way of growing from it.

I continue to explore the human condition through color and canvas, learning about myself and life, and I hope that you will follow me on this journey too.

- Ethan K.