So I was out today with a friend of mine. We had this conversation about art and it reminded me of the days when I was in University studying Fine Arts. During my first semester in university the topic of the semester was "From reality to Abstraction". The professor had given us the job to do two abstract pieces at home. As a person who always like to put some meaning or feeling in my paintings it was harder for me than to just put a few splashes of paint. I wanted my paintings to mean something and to be felt by others in a certain way. It was almost the deadline of the project, everyone of my classmates had already finished their works, and I still didn't know what to paint about. I decided that the one piece will be based on emotions and the other will be with a meaning, and that was about all I had figured out. The first one was easy I knew what to do. I put some nice music while I was painting and I let myself sink in the emotions it gave me. The rest was just transfer that emotion down on the canvas. Then I blocked! I couldn't figure out what to paint about on the second one. I started thinking, and thinking, and thinking - but nothing came on my mind! Then at 2AM it hit me! As a kind of rebellious artist I have always been against censureship over art. That was it! So I took the canvas, took my brushes and started thinking how will i paint censureship as an abstraction. And I did it! I'm posting a photo of the painting it's called "CENSURE" as the title of this post. Please be free to critisize it or comment your thoughts and impressions on it.
In this piece I wanted the most interesting, the most eyecatching part of the painting to be hidden. So I put painter's tape down on the canvas and painted everything black. Then I painted the most beautifull and interesting part of the painting over the painter's tape and then removed it. Because that is what censure over art is to me personaly. It doesen't let us see art for what it is, it doesen't let us see anything but the borring black! Everything that had value for the artist in this painting is gone, censured! Everything that you would probably be interested to see on this painting is gone and I can't share it with you. The censure stripped me of the opportunity to share my thoughts and emotions with you. Isn't that the point of art? To share with others, to show your inner world to others. And ofcourse I'm not talking about legal censureship! I'm talking about the censureship society puts over art. Let me give you the example I gave to my friend during our conversation. Imagine there is this Artist who is making an exhibiton of twenty paintings of vaginas (i hope some of you don't take my language as offencive). And for example imagine these are all his lovers female parts. What do you think will happen? A huge part of the society would feel ashamed, or disgusted, or even offended from these paintings. The only thing they will see is twenty vaginas hanging on a wall. Nothing too interesting, right? Well let me tell you what I will see. I will see the courage of this artist, the strenght it took him to do this. I will see the way this artist is letting people see his most intimate moments. I will see this person sharing those most intimate moments with us, shattering down the barriers of his comfort zone and letting us take a sneak inside. Walk a mile in his shoes. But still most people won't see it for what it is, most people will say "This is outrageous!". Most people won't see art for what it is and would ask for all this so be censured! Why? -Because the society said so! Please don't take me wrong, everybody have the right to like it or not. Everybody have different tastes. I don't judge you if you don't like it. But most people won't say they don't like it because they actualy don't, they will say they don't like it because the society thinks its bad. Thats what I can't understand in people, just because the mass doesen't like something doesen't mean its wrong or bad!