I would like to further explore Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, but in a modern sense of the idea.  Like Bosch, my interpretation will also have three panels consisting of heaven and hell with earth in the middle, however the approach to painting will be very much different than that of Bosh, due to the various other styles of painting I have been exposed to.  The depictions of figures and their actions will also be different due to the experiences I have had in my own life.  However, the underlying theme will be to celebrate the beauty of life.

I always interpreted Garden of Earthly Delights as a Bosch’s way of explaining life on earth.  We always have the idea of morals hanging over our heads, however, we live in a world where terrible and disturbing things happen every day.  Just like in Bosch’s painting, when you look close at individual situations, good and evil things are happening all the time in the world but when you back up from the painting it becomes a complex but beautiful blend because their is no good without evil, happy without sad, cold without warm, ect.  Through my work I would like to provide incite into the complex and often daunting world we live in today.  Not to answer any questions but to represent my interpretation of the world I have been exposed to.

The world in which we live in today is dominated by the advancement of continually developing technologies fueled by the consumerism created by our free economy.  For the most part, the things we come in contact with on a day-to-day basis are made by machines and computers, from the cars that we drive, to the food we eat to, the phones we communicate with.  It seems that the only things we come in contact with on a regular basis that are unique and one of a kind are other human beings.

As a result, I have found that my place as an artist is to celebrate human touch, emotion, and expression through a particular medium.  My paintings and sculptures are not intended to depict a visually realistic re-creation of something that already exists, but to capture the energy and emotion of a particular time and/or place.  Just about every one has a smart phone with a top grate camera built in, meaning that any one can capture a re-creation of a time and place.  As a result, my work pushes the boundaries of visual reality in order to achieve the sense of feeling that comes from that particular moment in time.

I firmly believe that we are constantly being shaped by the world around us through our own personal experiences in life, and it is essential for artists to understand their place in history as a result.  Ideas do not just appear out of thin air, even at the simplest levels, rather, they our own interpretations of what we have been exposed to in our past.  Their is a saying that says, “All great artists steal.”  I never thought this statement to be accurate because it cannot be referred to as steeling due to the fact that it is impossible to re-create exactly what someone has created before.  Perhaps the phrase should be changed to “All great artists re-interpret and further explore concepts that have been previously explored by those who came before.”

As a result of the subjective nature of art and expression, I feel that an artists work is no longer truly theirs once they have shown their work to another person.  Once another individual has been exposed, it becomes partly their art as well due to the fact that they have interpreted the piece in their own way based on their experiences in the game of life.  I feel that it is for this reason that people place value in the arts and oftentimes invest a great deal of disposable income in works that they can identify with.  Furthermore, I feel it is my job as an artist to express myself in a way that can allow people to respond on an emotional level and hopefully make the world a better and or more beautiful place.

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