Desolution of a 10-year old female Mizo Artist

Ok!! Here's this interesting photo I saw today (13th August, 2014) on Facebook. It was done by a 10 year-old mizo Girl, whose name I do not know. It was posted by his father, David Z Hmar. The caption on this photo says that the younger girl complains about her elder sister sleeping  posture that keeps her uneasy at night. So, the elder sister hearing that drew this picture of them sleeping together.

What intrigued me about this picture is her confidence in line- one of the most important element in making artworks- one which many of the amateur artists seemed to ignore. The space is well divided and composition well-balanced. Lets stop here in that aspect.

This is the kind of picture we see often in Internets and comics and might not be so fascinating as such for those who practice art and encircled within the art-world. But if you are from Mizoram and happens to be a 10 yr-old girl, this is something  beyond ordinary ( i wouldn't use extraordinary) because this picture speaks a lot about our social culture these days.
There is no such thing as any formal art education in Mizoram, we don't even have art subject in our syllabus. Well!! some schools do have and art education is a part of the Government school's syllabus, but we all know that none of us really took heed in learning art ( not even the teachers are qualified) and no school really taught art as it is meant to be. So, knowing all these, without any formal background in art, we can assume that a 10-year old doing this kind of artwork really is gifted.

I even loved the part of humor in the picture, note the difference in the facial expression of the two dreamers and what they dream about. What I said this picture speaks a lot in terms of social culture is the dream the elder sister dreams about. I mean, it's something out of our socio-cultural environment a few years back for a child (10-years) to dream such thing as "Lovers" and "Kissing". It seemed a girl her age would dreamed of butterflies and Unicorns or whatsoever. It might be the influence of K-Pop and Western culture that so much invades many of the youngsters who never actually faced the trouble of censorship.  Having said that, what I love about this picture again is that it speaks for Artists too - that Artists are always ahead of their contemporary humans, dreaming like grown-ups and always ahead of their times.

And her way of treating/coloring the dream is even something to talked about. Instead of coloring the two faces, she colored the negative space between them which could be mistook for the positive space.

Yeah, she must have felt inappropriate for her age to  express openly such as this, and induced a kind of illusion to lead the eye away. Below is an illustration of such illusion.

I really wish to know her more, let's hope in the near future that happens, and as is always, wished to get pulled near by the string that bounds all artists together. :-) :-)

YEAH !! ARTISTS DREAM HIGH

An Abstraction????

" The sub-conscious mind at work"
Reverse painting on Acrylic sheet

My first painting of a kind and the last( till now), this is a kind of painting that is painted reverse. This kind of image evolves from an unconscious strokes of pencil I used to do for quite a number of times. It was in my second year in college (2010-11) when we are confined to weekly submissions and a particular exercise.

This was an exercise to an introduction to mural painting. It is done in an acrylic sheet where you can see through, it a kind of transparent plastic glass. So! what you actually see in the painting is actually what is in the backside. What you see at the top is actually at the bottom; from where i paint, and is covered up in layers over successive layers of paint. You can't make a mistake painting this kind of painting thinking that you'd cover it up because the very first stroke of paint is visible-actually the most prominent from the other side from where the finished work is viewed. It is really difficult to do such work as you need to paint first what is supposed to be at the last in a normal way of painting, the left has to be painted in the right side...things like that. It's quite interesting as it takes lots of skill and ideas in the execution of the work alone. Since the sheet is slippery, the paint needs to be controlled greatly, with timing crucial as the paint gets dried fast making it very hard to blend or mix colours as I used acrylic and you can relate to the summer condition in India (New Delhi).

Recalling the times I had struggled to get myself get along the unfamiliar faces and places, I realised my feelings and emotions had so much to do with my artworks which I was not very much aware then. My consciousness must've overpowered my thought process and what's inside my head must've knocked down what's inside my heart. What I'm trying to imply here is - what I've felt deep inside, I never took the courage to let it pour out or make it happen. When you are an art student, you've been set a task by your own-self, questioning your abilities as a skilled artist, trying to prove yourself that you can do something ( My main implication here is to be able to render things realistically or naturally, specially when you are surrounded with laymen-not so into art ). You never took the courage to employ your creativity and playfulness if it's not something; like when you are afraid you' might get question like- "what the hell is that picture of?" My sketchbook was filled with lots of things, a sketch of  person or objects, random words and some scribbles such as this kind of painting. It's kind of difficult to make it into some serious painting when you don't know what it is. But then I did, it was like achieving something you're able of but being hold down. It's something like someone finally getting confident to let her voice known to others what she's been listening to all by herself in the bathroom while taking a shower.
So what!! when you don't know what it is, what you're painting? That actually makes it abstract. Not everything has to be clear, in fact nothing is really clear in art, and multiple interpretation is often sought in many a paintings. This painting is an expression, the expression not clear in itself...... but then it is a kind of formless (though it has a form, to argue it) set of thoughts and feelings that is lost in space...an endless cosmos stretched into infinty. The ideas and mind often work like this, the ability is infinite but never ventured deep enough and make it finite. Solid packed spheres and empty bubbles are another elements that constitute the human mind sometimes with ideas packed up and simply empty sometimes, they remain exists  at all times: its simply filling up the sphere.