East meets West

 

My art education is deeply imbedded with conceptual ideology. During my undergraduate years, I was prohibited from pursuing the genre of realism. The year was 1981 and I was a moldable, 19 year old, open to new ideas. I promptly embraced and aspired to excel at this contemporary dogma. I became a proponent of conceptual art; abstraction, expressionism, minimalism and other modes of visual communication. But in doing so, I silenced a voice that would not be heard again for almost 20 years. I was ashamed of my fascination with realism. Occasionally, I would attempt to teach myself realist techniques, but showed no one and never spoke of it. I began to feel that I did not fit in anywhere. The time I spent improving my craft became almost non-existent. For several years I taught and even acquired a Master’s of Art Education but still found no evidence that realism had a stage in contemporary society. There seemed no path for me.

 

I began to study Buddhism. Perhaps, I could find an answer to my discontent.

 

I spent a decade of fruitlessly attempting to become ‘a rich and famous’ artist. After all, isn’t that why one goes to art school? Buddhist practices taught me to transcend these superficial attachments and in 2005, I let go of what I thought I was supposed to be. 

 

I have always been a realist.