39 | Art Can Make You Happy

Often artists paint to express their own feelings, which I do as well. But this time it was kind of the other way around: whatever mood I was in before starting my painting session, it was shaped by the painting while working on these energetic three friends from India. I was always in a good mood afterwards.

Art Can Make You Happy

Art can do this to you. Art can make you happy. Often we select a piece of art because of some more or less conscious feeling that arises when look at it. Maybe it is a landscape painting that reminds us of a vacation situation. Or a portrait of our favorite animal. Or even an abstract painting that triggers a certain set of emotions that we feel extremly comfortable with.

When looking at a painting of people, many things can happen because the figures serve as a mirror for us. This is even more true when the figures look straight at us. If we don’t like what we see – in this figurative mirror – then we probably don’t like the painting either. But even the face of a sad model can touch us in such a way that we like it somehow. The atmosphere in the painting is not the decisive factor. The question is rather whether you can and wants to get involved with one’s inner feelings, which come to the surface, or whether you prefer to distance yourself from them.

Three Little Heroes

Little Heroes
Oil on canvas | 70 x 100 cm
2022
Reference photo: Anjan Gosh

I always have fun painting. But these three energetic little heroes have really intensified my joy while painting them. Isn’t it great to see how children are often ready to take over the world when they are happy? Their motivation is easy to spark. Let’s not give them reasons to stop but help to empower them so they become strong personalities with a potential to change the world.

When I started the painting, I was thinking about adding another piece to my Friends series. Now that it is finished, I can’t stop debating whether I should rather assign this piece to the work cycle “Children of the World”. And actually it is obviously also part of the India series, because I used a reference photo by Anjan Gosh. I must laugh in the face of such a classification problem! And I already feel even happier than before. The categories actually don’t matter so much. What matters is the power a painting can have. Now that I have found out the true power of this painting lies in the combination of so many of my inncer concerns, to me its power is breathtaking. It actually has superpowers.


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