An Introduction Pt.2

My life as an artist has been a life long process of self-knowledge, inner search and my path to freedom. I consider painting is a meditative act, a form of prayer which has accompanied me all my life, it has been a spiritual journey in all the sense of the word. This has lead me into studying the Great Masters of Art and also many Spiritual Masters. Through the daily act of introspecting, I saw art and life coming together in a most interesting way.

I have also found resonance in artists like Vlaminck who also used to say that the only way to communicate was through color, later in his life he decided it was through form and in his final days through feeling, Derrain talked about bliss and Villon about inspiration. I think as artists they were all seeking the same: to find themselves in their paintings, to create a relationship with their public through feeling, and to find Truth. Braques and Balthus also considered painting a form of meditation, a way to access God. Cezanne, for example, believed there is a secret rhythm underlying creation, he said: “only in nature undefiled by man, eternal truth can be discovered”.

Many of my beloved artists since the Renaissance until the 20st century, felt this connection and had a glimpse of the divine while painting , they were genius in their creative endevours but some failed to apply their knowledge to their daily lives.

In life, people relate to others like the colors and shapes relate in a painting. When there is relationship you feel a flow, peace, communion. When there is chaos, relationship is destroyed. In this way I would like to put together art, life and healing. Any artist that finds the way to create relationships in his paintings and then applies that knowledge to life, has found the alchemic secret, the transformation of our life with all it’s dramas to happiness, peace, joy and bliss. Negative emotions are destroying our society and I propose that art is a path to healing our lives. Separation, and fragmentation, disjointedness to me is the opposite of order, beauty and relationship. It is not different from a painting that has not been achieved, in which there is chaos instead of order and beauty, understanding that there is an implicate order, relationship and beauty in abstract painting too, like in Pollock, Kandinsky and Rothko. Painting is this marvelous tool to achieve that integrity. If we can achieve “relationship” in a painting, we can achieve the same in our life with others and in our body- health and wellness, a feeling of flowing easily in life.

This is the beginning of a course in art, life and spirituality. It is experimental like all of Picasso’s paintings, and exploration into insight and the movement of thought. In a similar fashion the course that I propose invites all of my students to discover for themselves the truth of the above statements. Intention is all that is required, intention of understanding what is art, what is life and healing. What is important is that the artist or student has an intention of expressing and knowing himself. All experiments need a method and for this one I propose that it be through enjoyment. Every creative act is an act of giving and based on Derrain’s philosophy, I close this matter in a positive note by stating that art is JOY. It is our responsibility to be artists, creators, 24 hours a day to enhance our lives.