ABSTRACT
Art’s job is to engage the viewer. Visual art makes that contact directly through the eyes, without the intermediary of speech. With such a connection the communication can be made on a profound level. If it is good art, it will invite the contemplation of things that cannot exactly be put into words: ambiguities that form the connective tissue in life, passing incidents that may hold great consequence, as well as sheer exhilaration and seering pain. When I recognize such things in a work of art, it helps me to feel less alone. Someone else has lived these things too. The solitude of individual existence is momentarily broken and the contact provides, as Nietzsche said, ‘…triumph over the frightening depths’. Art allows us to accompany each other. It is what I try for each time brush meets surface.
