(Minghui.org) As an artist, I can say that people who are dedicated to their art can bring out their inner self, which leads to letting their thoughts, emotions, and feelings be seen; in this sense, it can be said that my artwork changed after something inside of me also changed.
I remember that since I was a child, I had many thoughts and concerns about the reason for life, and its purpose or meaning. These existentialist questions always remained during my adolescence and into my adulthood, and as a student of fine arts. I began to make my artwork, sculptures, objects, drawings, and the content of my work that were related to those subjects. Although I had studied, looked for knowledge, read books, and trained myself in these things, I never found answers to those primary concerns.
A great theme in my artwork at that time was that of emptiness, an existentialist kind of emptiness, with a certain negative tone and an apocalyptic vision. They were related to objects such as "dolls," some deformed or burned, results of failed scientific experiments, cloning, futuristic cities in ruins, and so on.
At that time, painting was not a discipline in which I was comfortable, but I felt comfortable with monochromatic (colorless) drawings, objects with wires and assemblies with different things found on the street, or sculptures with welded irons. It was a cold, hard, somewhat painful aesthetic.
I don't remember the year well but I think it was in 2007, when a friend gave me a Falun Dafa brochure. At first I didn't give it much importance. After some time, I browsed the website and saw there was a free exercise site near my house and I went and participated. Soon, I started reading the book Falun Gong and then Zhuan Falun.
That is when something inside of me started to change. Sometimes I think there are no words to define how great Falun Dafa is, or what it represents in all its dimensions. But I can say that Dafa began to change my thoughts, my way of seeing life and, almost without realizing it, I began to have those answers that I had always asked myself and had not found until now. These changes, of course, also changed my relationship with art, the way I saw it, the way I understood it and my artistic productions were also different from before.
Thus, little by little, the content of my artwork was changing, transmitting a certain spiritual part of our inner being and leaving behind that vision of an apocalyptic world, of a certain decadence and pain. So, also color, in the painting, entered into my productions, the content of my works became something purer, more upright.
It is clear that the change was due to the changes in my inner self, as I walked the path of cultivation in Falun Dafa, my works began to have a colorfulness that they did not have before, a dimension I never explored before. Over time I have realized that through my work I can transmit a positive message that can reach other people, and through my paintings and drawings with a very figurative and realistic approach, I describe typical scenes of Falun Dafa practitioners. For example, the weekends in Chinatown that showed practitioners talking to people about Falun Dafa, demonstrating the exercises, or participating in the celebration of World Falun Dafa Day.
In addition, some works highlight the issue of the persecution of the practice in China, while other works demonstrate the divine nature of Dafa.
It should be noted that I have been a practitioner for almost ten years and I feel that as an artist I must transmit something good and righteous. When I look back, the change in my artistic works is great. I know that the quality or the result of these works depend on self-cultivation, always, and although it is not easy, trying to move forward and taking a step further each day. The teachings of Falun Dafa have undoubtedly had an impact on me and it shows in what I do.
Please, find some of my paintings attached.
"Sunny Friday", acrylic on canvas, 1mt x 1mt.
"Crossing the Cosmic Extremes", acrylic on canvas, 0,92 x 0,65 mt.
"Oriental Greeting", acrylic on canvas, 0,50 x 0,60 mt.
"Imprisoned for His Faith", acrylic on plasterboard, 1,27 x 1,07 mt.
(Submission to “Celebrate World Falun Dafa Day” 2018 on the Minghui website)
