Tuesday, December 21, 2010

In the eye of the beholder

My eldest son is an artist. The stack of sketchbooks on his desk show the progression of his art from imitation to innovation.

Some of his sketchbooks are thematic. One of my favorites is centered around William Ernst Henley's "Invictus." The images are surreal and grotesque and perfectly capture the juxtaposition of persecution and defiance in the poem. He's not ready to publicly share those images because they are intensely personal. I get that. I've written stories I'll probably never share because they are too personal.

Lately, my son has been playing with sound and images. Inspired by Dubstep (Go look it up. I couldn't begin to describe what it is.), he used a simple video editing program to combine still images and short sound clips to create what I like to think of as abstract video art.

The viewer brings their own experience to any work of art and uses that experience to create meaning, but abstract art allows even more room for interpretation than other forms. Impose whatever meaning you like on this, or none at all, but I thought it was cool.

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