- Art is a sign of evolution.
We rely on our bodily senses to experience the material world, and we are all different in what our senses have told us about reality and in our interpretation of what is going on around us at any time. Art allows us to communicate a sense of our own experience to others without explanation. It is a way of showing our experience of life to others, and allowing them to respond to what has arisen into our individual consciousness.
Beyond the material sensations we experience in the world, there is an ineffable experience–an experience of a presence that we sense, but can't explain. When I am painting, I often find myself reaching out to that presence. At times, I feel at one with it. For this to happen, I have to remain very open, relaxed and aware. Then, sometimes, something happens, and I lose myself in what I am doing: I work for hours without effort and without any sense of time. This is how the most meaningful results come about.
Never fully aware of the meaning behind the images or objects that appear as I work, after I step away to experience the result, I find deeper meaning. Sometimes I have an immediate response, at other times I am affected much later after living with the work and contemplating it as I grow and change.
I find it difficult to title the results without limiting the message that the work might have for someone else. If the experience was real, it continues to speak to me and, I hope, to others. So current titles only represent my own experience of the work at a given point in time. Your experience might bring up different thoughts and emotions from mine.
I hope you will find your own way of relating to what I am putting before you here. Whatever words you might use to express the meaning you find here, I believe that on the deepest level, we share a common experience that defies universal, definitive description and that this experience comes from the unchanging reality that underlies our individual experiences.
© Brian Rivera 2012