When we create a new building we don't try to make it look like something else. It doesn't stand for something else. An architect tries to make a place that is beautiful and that has utility. It can just provide shelter and be a meeting place. But it can be something more. It can be a beautiful place seen from outside and a comforting womb to those who work or meet there. So potential is a cogent part of this vessel.
Such is the painting, being purely personal yet striving to have a universal appeal. My struggle is with my place in art and the question, "Do I have a place?" This conceit relates to me and to others as they struggle to understand what is valid in art. So much of the tension between beauty and decoration, the ancient objective and now, content and idea, seems inexorable. If I have just copied nature verbatim there is less of me and more a mirroring of what I think I see. If I want to convey ideas then the piece has to communicate on a scale that a viewer can understand. But this can destroy the opportunity for creating beauty. Thus the dilemma. What is a painting?
