Homeless in Vancouver: Fine encryption of the art

The painting I found this morning beside a Dumpster looks starkly apocalyptic, chock full of overwrought imagery: a bleeding heart, praying hands, flames, a bird, rockets, and cups.

But if I recognize the figurative pieces, I can only guess at their meaning. The painting as a whole remains a puzzle to me.

All I can really do with it is be an audience and enjoy being puzzled.

The real Da Vinci Code

It kind of goes without saying but to understand a painting (or the original intent of the artist) you probably need to be the artist and even the artist herself may not understand the alchemy of her finished creation.

The act of creating art tends to transform its meaning.

All the factors that go into making a painting, such as style and technique and materials, can conspire like the rotors and plugs on a Second World War Enigma cipher machine to encrypt any meaning the artist might have been trying to convey.

And we’re talking strong encryption! No computer yet, that I know of, has proven up to the task of breaking a Jackson Pollock painting.

What’s more, art always looks like it means something.

Just the way gibberish looks as meaningful as Milton once the two have been encrypted, once art has been committed, there’s no telling how important or inconsequential the original impetus might have been.

That’s a feature of art, by the way, not a bug. Never knowing is half the fun.