Artist Statement

Art is a struggle. Sometimes the colors flow in a constant stream from my mind through the brush and onto the canvas. Sometimes the canvas tears and colors turn grey. Sometimes it just doesn’t come out. Like a tube of paint, you know there is something left, something not used up, but no matter what you do, squeeze it, poke it, bang it against the table, just a few measly drops drip onto the pallet. Sometimes it’s smooth. And then sometimes it explodes.

There is something inexplicable about art to me. Something that pulls me back, lures me in with just a feeling, an intangible magic. Again and again I leave in frustration and yet again and again I pick up the brush once more. An addiction to the indent the pencil makes in my forefinger. A never-ending thirst to depict how I see my world. A desire, a hunger, a fire to show others something of mine. Each painting viewed from a thousand perspectives giving a thousand different meanings. Art is powerful.

When I draw, somehow the stroke of the paintbrush and the colors spreading on the page closes the distance between him and me until for a single instant, only a thin sheet of paper separates us and I can feel his warm face and soft hands just below the paper, against my skin as my hand rests on the shrinking white canvas. I pour unconditional love into my art because everything that I couldn’t give then, I give now. Art is unconditional love.

Art is passion. Stress poured into something I am excited about. I want to struggle, to create, to love. It is a feeling that stirs the wings in my chest and pushes it to leap into the unknown, seeking the possibility of flight.

I don’t know what art is.