The Power of Art

In our art as in life, everything we do is a response to something we know, imagine or think or feel. Everything we know is a result of our genes or our experience or situation. We all respond differently, we are all in different places. To seek to control, to share, to say what we can see and understand are basic instincts. Successful art can address these needs.

I believe that successful art happens when others recognise in the art something which matches their own knowledge and experience. The art matches with what they know, imagine, think, feel. There is also the possibility that we have changed what others think with what we do; it may not have matched their existing state but by chiming in some way it makes them change. As artists we can change fashions set new trends and help, or make people see the world differently. This is a real power, as artists we get inside people’s heads with our output and truly mess with the way they think. Have you never seen something and then realised that the way you see it has been affected by the way an artist has put it in their work?

I make art to know better that which I experience and to share that knowledge and experience with others. I publish and exhibit because the affirmation from others of the shared knowledge and experience is affirmation of my interpretation. If the work is affirmed it feels as if the activity, the thoughts, the observations were relevant, valid. And it is good to know that the thrill which made me make the art in the first place has maybe been implanted in someone else so that they too might later see the world the same way.

The world and our part in it is a puzzle and our shared understanding through creative activity and thinking helps us to feel more secure, to celebrate our existence, and to feel that we are contributing to a bigger understanding – the continuum of art.