An artist’s eyes must look softly at the lofty sky, while his seat of perception is rooted in the strength of the earth.
What is the seat of perception? Is it lain in the mind that thinks, the heart that feels or the body that performs? Is it in the realization of truths and falsities; idiosyncrasies of a particular character; or defined simply by emotions and events influenced by time and space?
One thing is certain: That there is no golden book rule that explains the exclusive workings of the seat of perception. Its tone and temperament is not privy to class, gender, religion, or culture; it opens up its receptacle to the one eager to receive, understand, learn and unlearn.
The seat of perception although can seem conforming, solid and grounded in principle, is in fact an illusion of sight. What is right can look wrong; what is wrong could seem right.
The seat of perception has moods, colors, patterns and forms; muggy, ugly and unformed; wondrous, beautiful and defined.
The seat of perception can be barren like the desert or fertile like a garden of purple lilies; it is both intricate and plain, confounding to the spirit, understood by the soul.
The seat of perception can elevate you to float in space, it can carry you through the gentle flow of the river; sometimes it resides on flimsy ideas and sometimes on a stout royal throne.
The seat of perception can be child-like-silly, it can be wise and grandmotherly; mercurial like the mad artist or calm like the tree.
The seat of perception can be tender like a female lover, or hard like gravel; continuous in motion, traveling like the blanket of blue clouds, it wanders.
The seat of perception can protect you like the womb of a virgin mother, which protects, grows, builds and forms; it can throw you onto the sacred floor of a laborer’s concrete ground.
The seat of perception belongs to the thinker, to the wanderer and dreamer. It belongs to you and me. Just like thoughts sublime and sacred, the sitter of the chair is such.
Walid El Masri, a painter of Lebanese origin, born in Syria in 1979, and now based in Paris, explores the myriad consternations of the chair--his subject in question-and its relation to the ruminations of thoughts in Seat of Perception III. The exhibition is open for public viewing until July. 10, at Ayyam Gallery, Jeddah.
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