The Artist

Author's note: I wrote this one a few years back, in my final year of high school, for the Eisteddfod creative writing contest (it got first prize somehow). Not one of my best (the early ones never are, of course), but I'd still greatly appreciate any critique you might have regarding it.


I tell people, on the rare occasions that they ask, that I am an artist. I suppose it is my luck that the term has taken on an ambiguity; after all, I am not confident of the accuracy of such an answer. The implication that it is a career, in particular, is an unfortunate one; it may be true that the activities that prompted me to give myself this title take up time that should be spent on a ‘career’, but if there is one thing they certainly do not do, it is generate ‘income’. Nor is it particularly accurate to say that an artist is what I am. Such a question is never asked, of course – not with those precise words. But if someone were directly to ask ‘What are you?’, and I was somehow driven to place honesty above all else, what would I reply? Possibly – ‘a dried-out dissenter’…‘a pitiful attempt at a maverick’…‘an embodiment of festering apathy’…regardless, my first answer would not have been ‘artist’.
As I reflect on this, I sigh, inadvertently taking a mouthful of air flavoured with the tang of turpentine and oil. Hastily exhaling, I fish around in my pocket and bring out a battered cigarette, which I clench between my lips and light with a dying lighter swept from another pocket. Inhaling deeply and holding the smoke in my withered lungs, I step forward and survey the sight before me: upon each viable space on a cluster of makeshift display screens is mounted an oil painting. Every one is bordered by a rickety wooden frame, but that is where the similarities end; their sizes, shapes and layout vary, and their colouration and imagery display such contrast that they have the effect of a massive whiplash of the emotions.
I exhale the smoke, watching as it twirls itself into nothingness before turning my eyes back to the paintings. Their complementary colours, illuminated under the artificial glare of the florescent lights, seem to bellow at me as they swirl and clash volumetrically. And my focus falls upon a painting – not a particular one, the choice is arbitrary – that hangs mid-way up a stand before me.

This first painting is simple in every sense; a merger of glistening whites, blues and greens. The paint sweeps across the canvas and unites to form the image of a horse, striking in its shimmering white tone. Frozen in time as it stands on its hind legs in a triumphant rear, a silent bray of glee escaping its lips, its silver mane flowing behind it like a flame of victory, its muscles tense and defined, its conquering form stands against a background of rolling hills and an infinite stretch of blue skies.
To most, a decently-executed work portraying a sentimental, somewhat saccharine subject. But to me, the true significance stands out in a way it could only do in the eye of the creator; within the idealism, I discern my desperation to see the elements lurking in the painting – beauty, romanticism, the triumph of hope – in the world that surrounds me…and within myself. And at the same time, the painting reminds me of my inability ever to do so. The painting glows with irony, for its very being is a reminder of the nihilism, the apathy, the pathetic self-retribution, that climbs in intensity within me from day to day.
Squinting, I lean forward and, sure enough, catch sight of the almost invisible watermark that lies in the centre of the canvas, across the proud arch of the horse’s back…the spot where, in the throes of passionate disgust at myself that this painting had inspired, I had indignantly spat at the canvas.

My focus shifts to another painting. Once again an arbitrary choice, this clumsy set of canvas and frame hangs perhaps a foot above my head…

This next painting discards the clarity so prevalent in the last one. Set upon a canvas of unassuming size, it is, at immediate glance, little more than a series of nonsensical swirling patterns and shapes – none particularly obtrusive other than in their vibrant colouration – swimming like multicoloured fish from a dream across a vivid background. But one espied another element – an almost invisible one, yet one that assumed position as the painting’s central focus: the outline of a lofty, vaguely human figure, standing within the centre of the canvas..
To most, an interesting variation on the traditions of abstraction. And once again, more significant in the eyes of its creator. What I saw within the enigmatic central figure was, simple: it was the hunt. The hunt made by me and every man. The hunt for…well, anything. For a God upon whose altar to lay my soul; for an idol to revere as a shred of nobility amongst humanity’s savagery; for love of any kind, compassion that could be given and received in any form amidst an engulfing sea of hate.
What was encoded amidst the patterns obscuring the painting, amidst the figure’s own obscurity, was simple: the fruitlessness of my hunt for any of these things.

Why did I do it? Why, why did I have such a relentless habit of daily scrutinising these things? Was it pride? Self-indulgence? An aid to the childish fantasy that these things would be the key to my fortune?
No, no…I was able to say that I could feel none of these things – I had worn my formidable self-importance away years since…
And as I think this, my focus slips again…slips downward, downward into a corner of the display stand, where a third painting hangs…unobtrusive, but ever there…

This final painting is but a broad canvas smeared with dirt-brown oils, onto which hues of grimy red and yellow have been splashed with wild abandon. Handfuls of discoloured greens, glaring oranges, and every other shade of the rainbow have been flung with festive insanity onto the canvas. The painting’s foul character lies in its combination of simplicity and baffling disorder.
And yet the painting’s deformed face bellows out to me with my own voice louder than any of these others. Within its chaotic splashes I can make out the exhilaration – the unique thrill that had been flowing through my being. Within the dark shade of the canvas, I espy none other than my soul – the darkest, innermost reaches of my being, their shadows lurking in an anarchic place within me, one containing neither rhyme nor reason, neither constraint nor shame…
And the painting’s brighter hues – they stare out at me from the chaos and scream the loudest of all – the screams that, during these extraordinary moments of freedom, had not been as imaginary as they were now…

With considerable effort, I tear my gaze from the paintings. My lips curl into a smirk. I discard the remains of my cigarette and crush it beneath my heel.
When people ask, I tell them I am an artist. Artistry is not my career. An artist is not what I am. And yet I create what must be defined as art. Loathsome and adverse art by most standards, perhaps, but art nonetheless. Art created as a vent for my passions – created with the paintbrush of my psyche, a window to my soul…every aspect of it, from the upper summits habitually shoved into the daylight, to the veiled and shadowed corners so rightfully hidden from view.
Perhaps the term ‘artist’ fits me better than I might have imagined after all.