Mind in Art

6 min readApr 7, 2022

Mind in Art

Can I show you how I struggled to find form in art? I wanted to be true to self and what I was creating. I wanted to know why I could not get past myself in creating art. I wanted the making of art by me to be independent of myself and I think I might have found a way of doing this. I like to show you how I came about this and in the process the making art it also showed me my mind and how it worked.

Introspection and self-awareness showed me the limitations of my own thinking mind. But observing the process of doing that allowed me to see this limitation in my mind. I was passionate about finding the “new” in art and it showed me that I could not get past the past or the memory in me. Then I saw what my opinions and biases and personality were all about and realised how they were created.

One need not be present in what one is doing. The problem with the memory being in it is one cannot seem to get past it is the problem. So I like to show you how I got past this problem in me and how the manifestations of the art created will show you how I allowed only a little of me and my mind to be in the artworks. I need to show you the whole process of deconstruction of the process in the mind to get rid of opinions and biases and personality in the works of art, in the making of it, but not the direction and some decision making in the process. I let the process and chance and spontaneity decide what the form will be but in a controlled fashion.

I came to the arts after work. I stopped work when I was in my late 30’s. I wanted to be more creative rather than just work for money on a daily basis for the rest of my life. I wanted something for my mind to find its full potential, it's most creative to discover all of it and I thought art would allow me to explore my mind.

So I started from the bottom with the foundation courses and started blindly in the process of making art. I created enough work to get into the Slade School of Painting here at University College London, in the United Kingdom. My early tutors were supportive so I was allowed to progress. Here in the UK, they do not teach art but rather they try and extract what you have from you and hence I was allowed to explore. I was free to create and the courage to be creative was all my own. I was blind to what art was and hence there were no limitations in me as to what was art supposed to be — so I came to it by watching myself and my mind.

Some of my very early works:

A study for the work above:

I wanted to show what was behind a painting it is really a manifestation of the mind but still, it is just an object like a carpenter makes a chair, something you do not sit on but actually display on a wall — but surely it must be more than that.

So I juxtaposed the paintwork with materials one would use for sculpture on the edges to emphasize that a painting had these 2 aspects to it — it was an object but still had something of the mind in it. But then can I do this better in writing than make a painting. Is the process of making art limited to the discovery of the inners of the self and brain/mind. Does the process of making art show me anything about my own mind. It is all about innovation anyway. As the professor said, “you have a 2-dimensional surface and you innovate within the canvas with form. You do not need to add stuff on the sides.” So I stopped, and then I saw others start to add stuff to the edges of all their paintings. What! was all that about?

So I started to look at what was behind the canvas:

I started to burn things hoping something might come through in my mind for the purpose of making art:

I always moved on as any of it was not enough. So I decided I would incessantly layer things on top of each other and the mind is layered and complex with no meaning in it, a living still life of sorts. Not enough, so I moved on…

Perhaps some realism — I need to know what I could do if it was required of me:

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A walk in the park:

Jesus of India:

The mystical experience. The struggle to be nothing in the mystic and yet not managing to escape the something in oneself. Frredon from the known in you.

Finally capturing the shadow in me: my peak experience of the mind to have as little of me in the process of making art. Using photo emulsion to capture the shadow. It is spontaneous and full of chance and some decision making in the final attempt to complete the painting. This allows for the mistake to be made, for the “new” to show itself and less of the past of the mind or memory in it. To create art and to be free of the known in you in the process of making art. Free at last at the courage to create art and to be free of me in it and to get past the known in me.