I would have loved to view this art exhibition in person. One reason I find paintings done particularly from the Renaissance to pre-Impressionistic periods difficult to grasp is that they look so anatomically realistic and ‘complete’. As if the artist’s only intention was to perfect the technicalities behind the art-making, or that the artwork can only be seen as a means to an end; the hands and brain were working, while the heart was not.
Just knowing that there are unfinished artworks out there gives me a sense of connectedness, wholeness (I see the paradox). A kind of feeling that is almost inexplicable but I’ll try to explain… Firstly, the connectedness I feel with other art-makers whose artworks sometimes need to be left undone and resumed another time or never again. We are subjected to the environment and context to which the art is being made. Or that any artwork we do need not always require a sort of finishedness; we can decide for ourselves when an artwork can be considered ‘finished’ but also, in my own opinion, artworks can never truly be ‘finished’.
Next, seeing the process of the art-making being made more apparent through the unfinished parts of the canvas left me feeling a kind of wholeness that binds the art and the art-maker. These are reputable artists who are regular human beings who made/make art through similar means. We are the same at the very core of being, just living different lives, making different things, bound by the process when we are making. The making is process, and process is key.