"Art allows me to externalize my darker sides" [1]
Agostino Arrivabene
“The more you improve yourself, the more you will elevate those around you. He who seeks to improve himself is an ever happier creature. The happier you are, the happier those who live next to you will be. "
Paramahansa Yogananda [2]
Why do I use the artistic tool, and do I make it my main activity?
Regardless of the historical period in which I find myself, from standardization and cultural homologation, I try every time I can to reflect on the fact of why I am here, in this precise historical context, doing what I do.I think it is a question that often bounces inside the mind and that finds answers that are sometimes satisfactory, sometimes less so;but this, I fear, is the game of life.Only at the end of the cycle will we actually know what we have done and why.Now I would like to let those who approach my artistic work discover the bases that have led me, lead me and will lead me to continue this vital path for me.
THOUGHT
One of the first answers I give myself is to explore the various sides of myself.
I intend to explore myself as a constant path, which allows me to give shape to the images that float from my unconscious in the sea of the mind, without apparent logical links with the reality I am experiencing. Precisely to give body to these images, I have always needed the artistic tool to see them from the outside, and find out if I loved them or hated them, or both at the same time. I also say hate because art, as in the opening sentence of the article, has allowed me to bring out even the darkest sides and not just the images I wanted to see; the darkest sides, my shadows, the terrifying faces of the psyche, are planted like rocks in the soil of the inner landscape, but they must be understood, observed, welcomed. The worst thing that an individual can do for his evolution is to deny these sides of himself, to hide them in some dark corner, because they, like a wounded child, will come out with vehemence when it is less appropriate to allow him to express himself.
Everyone can find their own way of making these parts manifest and integrate in themselves, if he has followed a correct "path of integration" (as Jung would understand it); highlight what he loves and what he hates, but giving both the same importance in his own "Hero's journey". I need to see these parts, give them a shape, and at the same time enrich them with the substance with which I "feed" those images. I welcome them on a physical support in the world of matter to represent myself in one of my fragments that will perhaps compose an organic work in the future.
The process does not appear easy at all, I love to do it because I feel it as a real intrinsic necessity in my being, but at certain moments it also appears as a real torment, a continuous tension that dissipates when I manage to put into being what remains stuck perhaps for days, or months, inside complicated inner journeys. The creative phase is never without obstacles, it does not always flow like a canoe on the river, as you might think, but it often collides with obstacles dictated by our way of being, of approaching existence, our limiting thoughts and beliefs, and we must understand whether to tear down that wall, or take into consideration the fact that the obstacle exists, welcome it and overcome it in the most virtuous way possible.
At the same time, however, carrying it on paper, canvas, wood, or other types of media, I also feel a profound joy given by the fact that I have found the right key for that moment, to express what until some time ago I would have deemed impossible, and I can communicate it to myself and to others in the best possible way at that particular moment.
You will probably not see the best painting style or technique in the world, but for those you can always and in any case improve, and refine your expressive and artistic skills to better render what I want to show through the form.
"Take care of the form, in it you will find Man" is an aphorism written by Luigi Snozzi [3], one of those I consider to be my Masters from a representative point of view. It is probably the best spiritual teaching of him, even if he specifically spoke of architecture in relation to the territory, but perhaps without knowing it, he provided pearls deriving from his life and design experience.
His experience was of an architectural art and science seen as an instrument for achieving happiness for those who live in their environment, and thanks to it transmutes their essence and their being in the world; In my opinion, in fact, the external spaces are a reflection of an internal space, and precisely for this reason a disordered art (or a city, urbanistically speaking) is a material reflection of a misunderstanding, a lack of integration, and an interior disorder. The true material form must intrinsically be linked to a luminous spiritual substance, and the artistic act allows me to positively position myself in relation to what I observe.
WORD
The second answer of why I use the art tool is to communicate my individual experience to others.
The need for communication in art should work, according to my humble point of view, like the gift of happiness mentioned by Paramahansa Yogananda: in fact, he affirmed that it is useless to try to continually fill the cup of our personal happiness, out of pure self-satisfaction; however, it is important to give happiness and good to others, to realize that our cup is always full of happiness as a consequence. By changing the field in which we are immersed, we will also change our field in the positive (or negative, in the case of destructive thoughts and actions), as a direct consequence of our correlation. Even the study of the most modern physics, especially quantum physics, demonstrates this scientifically, in the form in which the mind of a Westerner most likes to approach.
So if the artistic transposition of what I bring out, in the end gives me joy and I continue to do it with constancy and determination with my work, communicating it trying to give the same feeling of joy to someone else will do both me and him good. who observes and enjoys the work done. This may be a reason for joy for the observers, or perhaps an occasion for a reflection, conscious or unconscious, on their own being and existing. However, there should be no reason for the artist to expand his ego, art made for pure and sterile satisfaction
of personalities is ephemeral, and in a certain way harmful for those who create it and for those who enjoy it.
Obviously what I want to convey will not reach everyone, or cheer or make everyone reflect in the same way, but starting already by taking these small steps is a way to improve the reality that surrounds me and around us on our journey. We are the masters of our words, actions and our inner states, and the artist must take this important detail into account in his work.
ACTION
The third answer is to put myself in communication with the source of creation.
Apparently it seems the most complex concept, but it is at the end of a disarming ease if we eliminate certain bonds that we have inherited, and that lie noisy in our subconscious to sabotage this communication.
The artistic act is par excellence, the act of creating. Creating comes from the Latin, and refers to giving life to something; together with the verb to grow, it shares the Sanskrit root KAR. In Sanskrit KAR-TR is "he who makes" from nothing, that is, the creator.
The concept of creating has been dealt with a lot in the past years, from psychology to neuroscience, with all the discourses related to lateral or divergent thinking, all very useful, but which, in my opinion, need to be expanded.
Creating through art breaks the inner and outer limits, the barriers between me and the products of the creative source (whether you want to call it God, Universe, Universal Consciousness, Infinite Creator, it doesn't matter, they are only human definitions) allowing me to be connected to infinity of which every creature is a part, all the more deeply as the work can involve me. It is not a real meditation as various spiritual traditions teach, but at certain moments the analogy with such practices becomes more stringent; the creative act in fact finds an intense connection with intuition, and if this intuition is allowed to flow and seconded, it can open a channel with the source, manifesting in our reality the fruits, in the case of artistic works, of this profound communicative interaction.
Putting myself in communication with creative energy is therefore for me an essential element of making art, because it allows me to focus my intentions and materially act in the reality in which I am currently manifesting myself. Also for this reason the works are often for me long, complex and laborious in seeing the light, but in the end they have, from my point of view, an extra value that allows to enrich their meaning of substance.
I hope that this can come clear to those who approach my work, and it would be nice to be able to share it. Every person who will enjoy one of my works, will also be able to contribute to convey these messages, allowing, in my small way, the world to be better than how I found it.
I thank all those who have wished to devote some of their precious time to reading this article and have therefore trusted the message I want to carry forward.
Long live Art, in all its most virtuous forms.
Anyone who wants to let people know about him with their personal shares, is the Welcome.
[1] http://www.rocaille.it/in-the-studio-of-the-artist-agostino-arrivabene/ [2] https://yogananda.org/it/il-segreto-della-felicit%C3%A0-duratura [3] Luigi Snozzi (Mendrisio, 29 luglio1932 – Minusio, 29 dicembre2020) è stato un architettosvizzero-italiano, considerato uno dei massimi esponenti della nuova scuola d’architettura ticinese.