To Paint is To Live - Love Through A Prism
Love Through A Prism was a gorgeous series I binged in under one day (admittedly that’s not very healthy but I digress) and it was worth every minute it took out of my sleep schedule. I won’t go into details of the intricacies of the plot and the artistic choices as I’m far too sleep deprived to do so, but more about one of the fundamental desires I feel as an artist that was expressed so well in this series.
The compulsion to paint.
Even as Lili tries to move on . And once you start there’s no stopping,
Because behind every painting that an onlooker spends 15 seconds admiring is an artist painstakingly scrutinising every detail of the color, lines, and composition so it tells the story the artist wants it to tell. The emotional attachment of an artist of their craft, and maybe I’m just getting sentimental again, but it feels like once I finish an artwork, it’s woven into my skin like scar tissue which loses its definite over time, but never its special property as scar.
I am currently on break for three weeks due to Lunar/Chinese New Year (I frankly don’t care for the controversy; use the term you find fitting), and this entire break I’ve just been drawing. Completely glued to my iPad, I’ve been putting in the hours for art, almost as though I was making up for all the art I could have made during the busy exam seasons when I didn’t have time to. It’s like all that desire to create has been bottled up so long that I have to paint for every free second I have now, and it can almost feel maddening.
Because our current society has such a strong focus on efficiency and productivity, I often feel really guilty for this desire to paint. For every minute I spend on art, maybe I could spend it instead on school or maths, something practical that would actually earn me a career in the future. And through Lili I can almost see myself, how mundane her world is when she’s given up on painting and how colourful it all becomes once she restarts. It’s like for me, I don’t feel real if I don’t paint or create, just like she feels in the series.
And I love the way she and Kit communicate through their paintings what the can’t seem to communicate in real life, such as the multiple lily paintings he makes towards the end.
I’m just really glad to see this artist’s dilemma presented on media. The desire to create conflicting with obligations steeped in reality. I like how it’s treated as valid and worthy of discussion in the series. Because even though I’m not an art God like Lili or Kit, I feel the same at times.
It’s such a great series!!!
