by Daniel Brophy
Published on: Nov 20, 2005
Topic:
Type: Opinions

Can you see this image? A garbage can, two children on top of it,one is having his diaper changed and the other is having his shoe tied, giving his mother a difficult time, grabbing her hair and wiggling his foot.

They wait for the bus, the mothers tend to the needs of their sons; life is like this; life is this, for many, for some. But life upon the garbage - it was just an instant happening outsideof the car window ... but it was so much more, leaving you speechless until you get home, and begin the sketches before you lose it ... but you know you will not lose it, even if the sketches for it were not drawn, because it was always there in your mind, it was always there from the beginning ...

I believe Picasso could have painted Guernica without the preparation: it was always there in him, but the sketches were necessary, yes, for the anticipation of the painting; for the fear of the painting; for the emotional and political level the painting would attain...

Filtering the world every day, every minute, second, every crack in the sidewalk, every bottle of beer on the tracks, or gutter in the streets is the storm before it hovers over the low populated city; before the chimes sound, or the shudders clack against each other ... the truth is there, the truth is underneath the porch - art a secret treasure to be found in a field.

Many have viewed my art and immediately they have claimed their mood drooped to some strange depressed-state. Some said it was "scary". Some said it was dark. And, yes, one said it seemed "hopeless". In all of my work, however, I try to offer hope, although at the foreground or forefront of it, it may appear hopeless.

But in them - in the corners, in the cracks of the paint, or on the walls in graffiti, their is some message of hope for the viewer. I guess what I want to say is, in our darkest, most depressing of times, there is hope; we just have to find it, to look at our life, to listen to it, and find it.

Hear the rain plop on your air conditioner in the early morning. Hear the wind move the trees like ocean waves. Hear the noises of a little child calling for your name. The things that we can easily overlook... I guess I feel compelled to address them.

The importance of knowing hopelessness? There seems to be a lot of it around us and in our own lives. Yes, I think so. Is it really such though? Is it an illusion? This is the question we might all ask ourselves. Do people choose to hide from it? We have many things to help us diverge from the truth, do we not? It is very easy; who has the time to truly look at life? To use their minds? Their eyes?

The importance of facing hopelessness? One needs to see it, feel it, be fully naked before it, experience suffering and pain before they will be given the eyes to know true hope; before they will be given the heart that can be transformed into a thing that knows how to function and work how it should - how it was always meant to function, as a changing and living thing that pumps life into our souls and desires to seek ultimate glory and enlightenment.


« return.