Poetic Explanations of Visual Art

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern." William Blake

There are different kinds of painters in this world. Many government funded painters simply express an opinion in visual form. Not surprisingly, these people find it easy to explain the meaning of their paintings when someone asks them what they are about. I am not such a painter. For me, art is not about making a statement, not about social commentary, and not about being part of any activism campaign. It is about asking questions that can evoke thousands of answers. When art is conceived in this frame of mind, a painting can say a thousand words, and would need a thesis to speculate about what its is saying.

Even though it is difficult to explain a painting, it is worthwhile trying to explain it and this requires some transference of ideas from the visual form that it's displayed in to the linguistic form that people think and communicate in. Poetry is the best medium for this transference because it is likewise an undefined medium that asks questions and allows for thousands of answers in a realm of uncertainty. While an image can indeed evoke a thousand words, a well constructed sentence can evoke a thousand images. Consequently, a poem can help in a forming a bridge between the visual and linguistic forms that is necessary for a more complete exploration of a painting.

Some of the poems used to consider the paintings come from a blank slate. Others use some of the structures and verses from existing poems. The final product is also original, but influenced by an existing poem. In selecting the poem, there is some kind of feeling, or structure, or element that is is a part of both the poem and an element in my painting. The redefining of the poem involves chipping away the unrelated elements and replacing them with more elements from the painting. Not only does the method help create a poem, the creative process itself can be quite gratifying as it allows for a certain kind of discussion with the existing poem, or adaptation of one of its elements.

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