By Brian Kershisnik
A painting of mine called “She Will Find What Is Lost” has lately been receiving a bit of attention. This is all fine and good, and indeed the people who are responding to this image are doing so from a large spectrum of extremely varied experiences. That is an indication to me that I have stumbled into something that is needed. The circumstances that drove me into this piece are, as usual, particular and personal and not necessarily needed to have a personal reaction and use for this piece yourself. I have often said that my paintings are a kind of mythological autobiography whether the subjects are men, women, animals, buildings, etc. It was not, for example, intended as a painting about being a woman, but rather a human. Humans have gender and for fairly specific, but not exclusive reasons, I chose to paint a woman. I do believe that in art, very often that which is most personal taps into currents that are most general. In this way great art of the distant past can continue to inform and illuminate very current issues. Finding these “big subjects” involves a kind of dumb luck and often has little or nothing to do with an artist’s conscious intention.
The painting “She Will Find What Is Lost” has been used to underline and illustrate a good number of private and public experiences as well as political or social agenda. This has led to a notion of my endorsing certain views. Of course, I agree with some of these views, some of these views I am ignorant of, and others I actually disagree with. Most of the stories I hear are completely consistent with the hopes I retain for the usefulness of this picture which is an extremely and intensely personal sort of usefulness. I cannot pretend to be able to dictate how people are to feel about my work or the narratives that they will bring to it. That is in fact anathema to my understanding of how art works and should work. If I may ask it of you, I ask that you respect that my intention for this piece was to speak to the most intensely private and intimate kind of supernatural interference, influence, and assistance, whatever your particular experience. I don’t have to agree with you to believe that whatever your gender, circumstance, or issue, many unseen forces are interested in you, love you, and work to influence matters for your profound benefit. Most of what we all do is resist it, misinterpret it, or mess it up, but my experience indicates that these unseen efforts persist impossibly. I thank God for that.
On a more temporal level, please be reminded that it is a licensed image and any promotional or commercial use must be done by permission.