Why Beauty Matters (In Art and Life)
When I was a younger artist, I was often hesitant to talk about beauty as an important component of my work. I wanted the work to be taken seriously (I still do) and worried that by invoking beauty, it could be dismissed as superficial.
Art is BIG and its capacities are infinite. It can be whimsical, angry, sorrowful or serene — and in every case, it can use beauty to stop us in our tracks. Lured by the beauty of the art, we pause and hear what the artist has to say.
When I began painting Flora Portraits in 2016, I was awakened to the transformational power of beauty. Flowers use their beauty to seduce us, and then the magic begins. In our busy lives, it’s all too easy to walk past a bed of flowers and see only a mass of color, all the while thinking of our to-do lists or the latest political scandal. But if we allow ourselves to be tempted by beauty, we will stop and gaze at the flower (or cloud formation or sunset). And in that pause, we will breathe more slowly and become truly present to the world around us. When we stop for beauty, we build our awareness “muscle” and seeing beauty becomes easier. Suddenly, it is everywhere around us and our days are suffused with an infinite capacity for wonder.
So, today, I pay attention to beauty and I celebrate it in my paintings. Beauty awakened me from the deep sleep of “doing” (to-do’s, must-do’s) into the miraculous world of being.
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Reverie, Oil on Linen, 30 x 40 in | 76 x 102 cm
Arabesque, Oil on Linen, 24 x 36 in | 61 x 91 cm