Friday, November 13, 2009

Art That Heals

I got the opportunity to tour the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific. You can find their website here.
From what I observed, it was an inspirational place with excellent facilities.
What rocked my world was the artwork.
All over the walls.
Everywhere you looked.
From what I gathered, they have artists come in and work with the patients. A link to the Louis Vuitton Creative Arts Program is here.
Keeping in mind the people that created the works, I'll stop, so you, the reader, can see what I saw:















I apologize for the quality of the photos for I was literally clicking away while trying to keep up with the group I was with. Unfortunately, my photos do not do these paintings justice.
This was one of the instances where knowing a little about the artists backgrounds made the works for me, visually compelling.
I've already made a mental note to check out their sale next year.
You should too.

3 comments:

dogimo said...

I'm extremely disappointed. In myself. I'm slowing getting ready to head out for coffee and then work, and scanning upwards through google reader and the first of these paintings are scrolling into view as I slowly click up, and I'm arrested of course. The bottom two make nature seem a terrifying force - even though the one could just be a day at the beach, and the other is a restful enough scene - but look how the water claws the land! Or hands, suspended menacingly above it in the beach scene! Which could be depicting a tsunami, but I'd rather believe it's just a day at the beach. The menace is implicit and omnipresent.

And as I keep going up, the range displayed - I said, "no way is this all one artist!" - but, still expecting it to be one for some reason. Then I read the explanation and was a little let down.

Then I was disappointed in myself for my reaction! But it wasn't a total snob reflex - I think it was just the loss of that imagined artist. Discovering an artist whose work tantalizes with the specter of a whole body of similar up-to-snuff stuff, just out there to be explored, is always a thrill and a treat! And you look forward to tracking it down in a leisurely way.

But this is overall, way cooler in terms of the program they've put together, and the eloquent testimony of the results they've achieved, which speak to the deep and tragically all-but-untapped well of creativity that lies within each of us...within reach! But will we reach?

limom said...

Good question.
I keep thinking about the motivations and inspirations behind each painting. Whether the reasons be real or imagined on my part, they are enough to cause me to feel a bit of shame, for my own creative output has been near nil.

dogimo said...

We trap ourselves, thinking of our art as an obligation which we must put energy towards. Yet every time we do we reap double energy back.