Re-awaken, Express and LIVE

This was an idea I had a while back, for a triptych that shows both the Cape Town and Joburg skyline on either side of a hand with roots at the end of the forearm. If and when I do it, the leaves might be a tattoo on the arm, rather than just twisting around the arm.

On quite another note:

For too long I have stared blindly at the solutions and aspects of myself begging for attention/to be expressed that are right in front of me...

I have been trying to integrate focus, balance and simplicity in my daily life, but constantly fail to bring it into practice in my art. I have constantly been aware of the cycles that happen throughout our years, seasons, relationships and lives, and also the interconnectiveness of everything, but neglected to express these realizations and truths in my art. I have also been trying to focus and move towards re-awakening my own connectiveness and knowledge of nature, as well as re-awakening my body through movement and exercise, but because art is so central to my life and I have NOT fully integrated nature and movement into my art, I have not succeeded or made much headway in either.

So the path that I will follow from here on will lead me towards exploring and expressing balance, focus, simplicity and cyclic processes in my art, which will more and more take shape in the process, and documentation of Land Art, performance art and other more 'transient' forms that capture the essence of the above elements.

Relevance is Relative

What is art's relevance in our modern society where almost every fourth middle-class person can take a photograph with a digital camera and transform it into a passable artwork by utilizing imaging software such as Adobe Photoshop or Gimp?


Photograph by Holly Raider. Model...me.

I think its value lies in the artist's interpretation/expression, the integrity to his/her medium, as well as the opportunity for the viewer to interact honestly and freely to an artwork. We are constantly guided and told what to do by advertising, our bosses, our religions, our families, and our peers or friends. However, when viewing or buying art you are given the opportunity and right to judge, criticize and express your opinion about the piece of art. And the beauty of this: you will never be wrong. The person who loves a certain piece of art is no more wrong or right than the person who hates looking at the same piece of art.

There is no wrong way to do art either, as the "invalidity" of an artwork can easily be debated by referring to previous artists and artworks through the centuries and decades, such as Marcel Duchamp's ready-mades or the performance art and happenings by artists in the 60's and 70's. Art usually reflects on the society and environment that it happens in, and since we live in a very diverse world with limitless possibilities, different cultures living together, and a never-ending range of visual stimuli and subject matter for artwork, the forms that art could, does and will take, are just as limitless and unpredictable.


...And I read this on a blog I follow, called New Art:

What if there was nothing to discover? No story, no thousand words, no answer to a non-riddle? What if it was really, really, just a game of forms and colors?
Would it be a sin?
Does this lady need a past?
Is it really so bad for something to be "just" a pretty picture?
We know of the danger of beauty, we know the seductive spectacle means flirting with submission, yet is it really so immoral?

Read the full blog (with pics, etc.) here