Stop, and think

Last week I went to an art exhibition at my local university. Obviously, as the show was degree level, I had high expectations. My expectations were not particularly met but I’m not writing here today about that, instead I wanted to think about this one painting that I was absorbed by. When I say absorbed I mean mesmerized, so much that I didn’t even realise the room emptying around me. The first time I looked away I just thought the reason why I had been so gripped in this particular painting, was by the repetition of the thumbprints. I thought it was a bit like op art in the way that the repetition of patterns and lines causes you to stare at it till your eyes go funny. But then I looked deeper into it and realised there was so much more to this painting than I had thought.

 

When you look at it without focusing the thumbprints merge and become lines broken by the white thumbprints, like when you look at text without focusing. The artist (unknown to me) had done every thumbprint with such precision and the lines were nearly, completely straight. I noticed the variety of colour as well. The artist had not used black, grey and white. The white was like eggshell. This colour blended into the wall so well at times that all you could see was the actual thumbprint and no change in colour. The greys and blacks had browns and reds and even some yellow in them. This made every print individual. However, I then noticed that the artist had smudged some thumbprints together, maybe where they had printed one thumbprint too closely next to the other? On the other hand, there were some thumbprints that were far away from their neighbouring thumbprints. Some people might say that the artist was being inaccurate but this is what makes this painting so interesting to me. It feels human. It really feels like someone spent hours trying to imprint their thumb onto the wall, making their mark.

 

It is always nice to find a painting like this. A painting that at first seems so simple but it really has so much more going on. It is a rare occurrence for me to find a painting that makes me think so much and I ‘take my hat off’ to the artist as I only hope that one day my own artwork will make some art student stop, and think, and dream about what the artist was thinking of when they did this piece of artwork. After all, isn’t art meant to be like that?