where there is perfection there is no story to tell - ben okri

something inside me is struggling. i’m trying to hush the restlessness, trying to retreat into the quiet inside my mind. in this act somehow, i find myself wanting to create.

so i painted.

i never painted for fun. i painted back in high school, because it was required in our syllabus. i am bad at art. and i cannot stress enough, how bad i am at art. i can’t even draw a stick man properly. if i was any good at art, i would’ve made a radically different career choice - interior designer perhaps. not info tech that’s for sure.

anyway - i painted. i bought a set of oil paint, some brushes, two canvas. i filled the canvas with colours without rationalising. it was therapeutic. the first two “art” i painted, were downright ugly. i shrugged, threw them away, and bought two more canvasses.

i began again, broadly stroking the colours onto the stark white.

at one point while painting, i stared at the unfinished art. it resonated with me somehow, its incomplete state struck a chord. it was like the painting paused, to take a breath.

i looked at it, examining the negative space. my eye sees the many possible ways to finish the painting. the subconscious is teased - it is prompted to fill in the blanks. the more i look at the painting the more i feel as though the art is luring me for an expression. and the fact that it is silently urging something out of me, makes it art.

so i left it unfinished.

published on Dec 21 08 at 9:57 pm under category : personal.