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I guess there's a time premise to a painting. The artist is not necessarily asserting -- but I implicitly assume -- that the artist deems any given painting "a thing upon which to dwell." A stamp of good aesthetic housekeeping -- trust me, says the painter, your viewer's mind and soul can rest herewithin. I mean, the painter certainly did. Day upon day of slowly creating the thing in which their visual cortex swam, lived, breathed and had its being. I am standing next to the artist. Seeing what she saw, imagining what it must be like to arrive from the other direction, without all the layers of preconception and intention that she baked in. And hopefully, from her direction and from mine, the good housekeeping seal, there is something "good" about this meeting of two perspectives. Your project throws that good-housekeeping seal out the window. Which is not to say that a given image is bad. Rather, that the social contract between one viewer and one artist, is missing. My viewer's eye keeps assuming it exists, and my brain reminds me -- no, this is all fake, there is no humanity behind the curtain. There is nobody to connect to. Maybe it's still art, but not the kind I... emotionally expect from a thing that looks, at first glance, beautifully painted? So, the infinite aspect definitely "helps" the experience. The exhaustion helps one feel viscerally how big is the problem space. |