When one mulls over the broad and often misleading word 'art' there are a flood of archetypes conjured in one's mind's eye: grandiose images of the Sistine chapel, of Van Gogh's sunflowers, of Proust's seven-volume opus À la recherche du temps perdu. Art inspires us to be better people. It elevates our humble minds to another level of being, a better level populated with beauty, truth, and perfection in all it's varied guises. Great art can act like a window into heaven.
So how are we supposed to react when the window becomes a mirror; a mirror reflecting us back to ourselves? Our earthly concerns. Our animalistic and often unexplainable desires. Our ugly truths and morbid secrets normally reserved for confessional booths and courts of law.
We often dismiss this as low art as we shrug off concerns of the body in favor of those of the soul.
But these artists of the low, who peel back the rosy film of apparent perfection and tolerance of society to reveal the darkly beating heart that lies beneath, deserve our attention as much as those who ascend our tastes to a higher plane.
In the following three entires, I plan to highlight three such artists, each of considerable talent in their fields of poetry, photography, and film.
If life's not beautiful without the pain, well I would just rather never ever even see beauty again
- The View, Modest Mouse.
Stay tuned....
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