Saturday, April 30, 2011

Going Deeper into Art

It is spring time and my university is all done. This summer I am planning on releasing Hari Singh Nalwa. I have been working on Hari Singh Nalwa quite a bit. Since a lot of the progress was lost, I have had to go back and really work at it. Also I realized it was a little mundane with him just sitting there, so I added some very relevant "props" to enhance his painting. So at this stage, I am ready to enlarge the entire image to about 7000 pixels and start detailing it out. Right now it can be printed at Large but when printed on 60" MASSIVE Canvas this will be a life sized portrait of him! It's going be awesome!

Now when I say university is done, I mean it's ALL done. I am going to graduate this year and earn my Biology degree. I guess that officially makes me a Biologist. But my mind is completely focused on art now. For three years I went through university thinking I would continue in the field and do art on the side. I was so focused on getting into medical school to become a Doctor. However, this last year of study, my mind did a complete turn, and I started thinking about doing art full time. That's right. Becoming an artist for a living! Now I don't know if I could do Sikh art alone. I would love to do Sikh paintings all my life but I think I might have a better chance doing other art. I love video games and working on them. one of my dreams is to create some of my own. Part of this dream involves me working with several major video games companies, and getting the experience I need for Sikh video games.
So last year of university I decided to go into art full time. There were several things that lead me to this change. One was simply because I was pretty good at it and very passionate about doing it. I have been painting all my life, and the more I painted that more deeply I got into painting.
The second reason came to me in philosophy class where we studied this philosopher Merleau Ponty. In a nutshell, his position was that art puts us into touch with the world. It expresses a truth about our perception. Our perception being a dialogue that takes place between us, the "observer" and our "environment". I think Ponty would say something akin to Indian Gurus, that there is no observer and environment, just the dialogue, just the perception. His main point was that art expresses truths about that perception, real truths. Whereas, science lays out a skeleton of the world, art lays out its flesh. So I thought that was kind of cool.
Along with that I realized that by shifting my attention between two or more things, it will become difficult to master either. I want to master art, become a master like Caravaggio or Rembrandt or Rubens, etc. I want to really get better at it. Art is one of those things that I would do even if I didn't get paid for it. Now of course, I still need money for sustenance and so I sell my work. But art is something that I can do without reasons. For me it just happens.
With all that in my mind, I decided to go to art school. I applied to Sheridan and got accepted into their Bachelor of Arts program.