What is intuition? To me as an artist it is the MUSE, my guiding spirit that gently pulls and prods until I am moving in the right direction, often against my will, my volition. On the one side is what I want and on the other is what I need and the two do not overlap much, but when they do miracles happen, the canvas completely speaks and is heard. When I insist on defying the MUSE, my canvas lies dead, dormant, unwanted, speechless.
Well, if I only had a better loudspeaker that amplified the MUSE'S voice I would produce nothing but miracles on canvas, and some artists in the past did just that...but the voice has grown weaker as our egotistical intellects took charge and declared they are the voice of reason and all else be hanged.
The MUSE started to wane, shrink and eventually totally disappear, especially in the art world. Conceptualism was born where the Intellect had full reign. And our intellect can be smart, chic, fashionable and extremely cunning, it can even pretend to be the MUSE to confuse the unsuspecting artist and make him/her believe it is really the MUSE speaking, but alas it isn't, as many a canvas will will prove because when you look upon the art, although intellectually titillating it does nothing more. It does not bring your senses alive and put fire in your belly, the way a brilliant art piece can.
So how does one know if your intuition is in communicato with your MUSE? It is by the viewer's reaction to your work and the real beauty of the art piece. By beauty I don't mean candy sickly sweet fluffy meaningless bunny ears...I mean an art piece that says all the hard things we need to hear and at the same time can capture your soul with it's beauty. One of my past art teachers, once said, that even if you paint a piece of turd on canvas you need to make it beautiful.
Why? Because it is life, both smelly and beautiful! And if you try to white-wash with neutrality in either direction as minimalism did, you kill everything that was vibrant and alive in the art piece in the first place. It is not enough to plaster a canvas with gobs of bright colours, then give it a smart title...like this young Canadian artist...who has suddenly sprung to fame due to a successful Gallery Owner and great family connections.
Erin Loree - Removing Dirt
Art has lost its meaning when it stopped being born from Intuition, the MUSE gave up awaiting, it's return, and I think maybe in 2017 there is a little crack in it's shell and we will see who are the artists listening and open to its voice.
Then there is Barbara Kroll who speaks volumes with very little effort, because the MUSE does not need perfect renderings to say what it needs to say, just enough to get the message across and painted with minimal amounts of medium.
As an artist in the Industrial Era we also need to consider making a living in the marketplace, and that I think has been our downfall. Instead of listening to our MUSE, we attempted to produce what we think the marketplace will buy, and unfortunately that has become the standard for art collectors buys, often well rendered meaningless kitsch or/and a conceptually titillating idea, that makes us think that it is real art, like the portrait of Trump in the nude recently purchased by some billionaire in England for one million dollars, just so she can say she has it and achieve some fame herself and not because your eyes are riveted and you can not remove them from watching the work because it renders you speechless and in awe!
Here is one of my favourite artists, Egon Schiele with a painting called, 'Mother and Daughter".
http://www.egon-schiele.net/download-220406-Mother-and-daughter.download
It is speaks volumes with simple flowing gestural lines and a few flat shapes of emotive colours.
Art is not just about what appeals to the average joe, it is far more than that, it is transcendent and speaks about things that the average joe hasn't thought of before so that he can can raise himself a bit above his current level of humanity.
Art is the voice of intuition in action.