How do you understand art? Even as an artist I have found myself, so often standing in front of a painting, scratching my head with a confused look on my face. Art is extremely subjective and just because you may dislike it, it doesn’t mean you have not connected to it. Actually, it makes it more intriguing to know why and what it is about the piece that repels you.

Have you ever seen a painting, so simple that it looks like a 4 year old could have made it? And wonder how and why it is hanging in a well-established art gallery with a large price tag attached? For you to be more objective towards the piece, I believe you should take a few minutes to actually analyze it a little more, by asking a few simple questions:

What do I like/dislike about the colours?
What do I like/dislike about the subject?
What do I like/dislike about the size?
What do I like/dislike about the composition? (The position and flow of objects)
What do I like/dislike about the meaning?

Once you have asked these questions, you have given the piece and the artist who created it, the respect they deserve. Just because you don’t like it at first glance, try not to disregard it. The amount of time and energy that has gone into creating the idea, and then actually creating a visual to prove that idea, takes 100 times more than the thought you have put together towards viewing that piece.

In most cases, an art piece is an extension of the artist. To view a piece of art is like reading a history textbook. The history of the artist’s thought process. Every brush stroke is like a sentence telling the story of the artist's journey as to how they got to this point. Every colour may depict the struggle the artist encountered to actually make a decision.

When you look at the piece, imagine the artist standing beside you, looking at the same thing as you. What you see is your interpretation of what it may be, or it might actually be what the artist intended you to see. Both are correct. What the artist most often sees is every single idea, decision, thought, and emotion, from when the canvas was white and untouched, the artist is reenacting their experience and through their medium, sends their message. Art gives us the time, a moment, where we can gain a little knowledge and insight to better our own lives without actually experiencing what others had to, in order to gain that information.

Any genre of art is displaying an idea, a thought or a feeling. You can either agree or disagree. Both outcomes are encouraged. The point is to spread the vision.