Dusk of the Dead, 42'' x 56'' Oil on Linen, 09
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The Power of Symbols
About the Artist.
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- Luiz Teles
- Union Beach, NJ, United States
- I'm an up-and-coming artist, BFA graduate from the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts. I am currently expanding outwards from the solitary pursuit of my inner visions to the outward world by means of my Art.
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Artist Statement
I am a narrative figurative painter. My work is often mystically charged with symbolism that attempts to tap into the archetypes in humanity's collective unconscious. In doing so, my aim is to subtly evoke mass appeal in my work without compromising my individual artistic vision.
While this sounds as though there is one universal formula for aesthetic experience of my work, it's not so simple. This elusive aesthetic experience is highly subjective, based on individual life experience and cultural upbringing. Its the reason why something like listening to Mahler's 8th symphony may move one person to tears and another to be simply bored to tears. To make matters worse, the human mind likes to identify itself as the sole identity of the individual as reflected in the words “I think therefore I am” The mind is a metaphorical watch-dog by which it believes that all sensual experience should be measured and judged by. It triggers responses like “should I like this?” In a modern society where rationality is so prized, an emotional or intuitive response to art may be often road-blocked by reason, effectively trapping it's beauty within the confines of its high tower. This trend can become downright unhealthy if the mind also blocks the natural flow of the irrational unconscious upon our rational consciousness.
Suppose you were to cross this barrier of conscious thought, you'd be flooded by rich dream imagery filled with personal meaning to the individual's life experience. However, venture far enough in the underworld of the unconscious and you will eventually arrive at what Carl Jung termed collective unconscious, a dream-scape of inherited collective memories of our species. Its a place where ancient shamans and priests were expected to be initiated into, delve into madness, face our archetypes, then return to our world enlightened. Its where the average person unwittingly becomes trapped into in a state of psychosis, unequipped to swim back out of this terrifying place where our collective gods, angels and demons reside. It's common visual metaphors are documented in all cultures in the form of universal themes within the human mythos. This is the language that artists, poets and musicians must master – consciously or intuitively, in order for their work to transcend the abyss of meaninglessness and reach the eternal, communicating esoteric truths about the human spirit across generations of human evolution.
The question still remains, how does one transcend the barriers of rational discrimination? In ancient Greek myth, Hermes, on his descent to the underworld to rescue Persephone, was said to have had to distract the three-headed hound Cerberus with honey cakes in order to move on to deeper realms. The honey cake is a metaphor for the artist's display of technical mastery and virtuosity at his particular medium, the means to satisfy the intellectual demands of our ever evolving brains. Its as though the artist must play the role of a snake charmer in order to communicate the ineffable. Its my firm belief that the success of visual stimuli upon the viewer depends on how much the art penetrates the conscious mind and resonates with the unconscious hidden truths about the Self. This is the place where the the seemingly opposites in the realm of rational thought converge harmoniously, transcending reason altogether, the house of Beauty.
Luiz Teles
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