The Art In You

Sunday, 20th January 2008

I had a great week last week! BLKMGK ICT won a major development contract, plus a few other smaller web contracts. We submitted our grant application to HP and it has apparently been well received - although nothing is certain yet! And I had some good conversations with people that I hadn’t seen in a long time. All of this is pretty routine stuff for me but even though I enjoy it very much, sometimes you just need to break your routine and get out there and do something different.

So last week I decided to go visit an art exhibition at our local Museum and Art Gallery. There’s just something about art that I find fascinating. Which is kind of ironic because I’m definitely not artistic by any means. In fact, when I draw a stick figure, people are thoroughly confused as to what it is...

The exhibition that I went to last week was called Inspire/Expire and it is basically a showcase of Australian artists and what inspired them.

With art is that there is no real right or wrong answer in how to interpret it. You read about the artist, read about the painting and basically come to your own conclusion about why the artist chose to represent the topic at hand in such a manner. Its fascinating stuff!

The other thing about museums and art galleries is the people that attend. There’s always a varied bunch of tourists, critics and guys trying to impress their girlfriends that they know art inside out! It’s quite entertaining.

My favourite painting from the whole exhibition was this one called Shambala. When you first look at the painting it seems as though the artist got drunk one night and started throwing paint around a canvas, but when you step closer to the painting you actually realise the intricacies of it. Amongst all the paint streaks there are hundreds of little Buddha images and its almost like the artist is revealing a hidden message. It’s a lovely painting and just goes to show that things are not always what they seem.

The other thing that amazed me about all the paintings were that some of them were donated from recently deceased private art collectors. I wonder what makes a person want to collect art, and if they really do enjoy sitting and looking at the paintings that they collect? Most of the time, people buy paintings for cosmetic reasons because they seem to light up a room or add the right touch of atmosphere to a house but rarely have I seen anyone buy a painting simply because they enjoy looking at it.

All in all it was a great experience and so this week I challenge you to break out of your routine and go look at something different that makes you think and discover the art in you!

Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!

AJ~

Author: AJ Kulatunga

Category:

inspire, art