Saren Dobkins - An Illustrated Life

This is exciting, managing to add a video to my blog.. well what is this? As i paint I often revise the original work and often end up with a totally different image to what I started with. In this case I was motivated to paint a work in response to an essay I wrote around sustainability of remote Aboriginal communities that rely on the production of artwork as their main means of financial input. I thought about how through artwork, Aboriginal people have been able to communicate and transcend so many of the barriers to engage on a dynamic and equal footing with the larger Australian community, well at least the ones that look and buy their art. I have been very much inspired and moved by Aboriginal art and the final work that I arrived at is an acknowledgment of how this way of seeing and interpreting the world has been communicated to me and changed my perception. And this to me is what great art does, challenge and change ones perceptions. The lines that radiate behind the 'white' head are reminiscent of the artwork that some Aboriginal artists use and it gradually metamorphoses to represent the sound waves or energy waves that we understand is ho energy moves through space and into the cosmos.