Art can be seen as the manipulation of perception into form. As artists we can only attempt to craft something that not only speaks to that of ourselves, but to others in such a way that opens them up to a new sense of fidelity and understandings of themselves and their world. Wether by facing some harsh truth, swallowing of denial, or by feeling compassion and the wealth of beauty pigmented on the page before them, possibly reflecting back some sense of gnosis or understanding. No matter what creative form or lack of form an artists comes upon to shape and mold, even if it is formless, as in a meditation, or the orality of spoken language crafted into a story, or the immeasurable immensity of which we call music, I believe it can still root itself in a form, root itself in the heart of the listener.
As we pass through galleries, street corners, skim through books, or digital bits of information trailing images across a lighted screen, it is up to us as observers wether we consider ourselves artists or not, to discover what we will. The art itself wether visual or written possibly does not hold enough innate ability in its occurrence to fully or always impact the viewer as much as when the viewer holds his or her respective candle up and within their own creative, subjective, imaginative or objective capacities they gaze upon the mysterium within its expression, to then illuminate the art for themselves in their own personal way of knowing or gnosis. So it is up to the artists to create the stage, but it is up to the observers to walk out upon it.
-Josh Fleming
Image by: Elfie Kalfakis
Exploring Consciousness 