AUDACIOUS ACIDIC ARTISTRY

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is a saying that is passed around, referenced, and re-referenced from time immemorial. It is true, there are those of us who can see, find, and "behold" beauty wherever we lay our eyes. This is nothing to do with perfection, but in seeing and finding that which pleases the "beholder's" eyes. On the flip side there are also those who only see flaws, the negative, the unattractive in whatever or whoever they see. This is also having nothing to do with perfection, but in seeing and finding only what is 'displeasing' to the beholder's eyes. The common denominator between both these aspects is that it is purely a reflection of the "beholder" and nothing to do with the "beheld".

- By Dinesh Chandrasena

The arts, in my opinion face the same. There are those who find redeeming features in what they see, and those on the counter balance who cannot find anything redeeming in anything they see. Again, a psychologically driven negativity that one cannot comprehend. When we look at the performing arts encompassing theatre, film, and interpretive movement, I always think that appreciating effort, understanding that every production does not have millions of dollars to spend, and that every thespian is not a Sir Lawrence Olivier, makes appreciating what we see, in the nuanced world we live in, easier. The storylines, the scripts, the plot may not be fine-tuned and sophisticated, the performances may not be the “best” but unless one is expecting perfection (which does not exist) everywhere, there would still be elements that can be enjoyed.

With the visual arts this goes even wider, further and deeper. Man has been creating visual representations since the very beginning of recorded history. The Neanderthal Iberian cave art estimated to be around 64,000 years old, created by the forefathers of modern Man, depicts crude but almost melancholic imagery of the harsh world they lived in. An inhospitable world of mega-fauna and Sabre tooth tigers, they still wanted to surround their basic abodes with some visual ‘art’ representations. The famed cave paintings in Lascaux France are said to be around 36,000 years old, where we also see that Man has had the inbuilt urge to create, to share visually what they themselves beheld, in the most detailed manner, using the limited resources at their disposal.

From here on it’s a wonderfully rich, mixed bag of cultures and civilizations where each, in their own right have gone on to show the real, imagined, and wished for world of their times.