Art - A Physical Conversation

What is it that art does in conversation with a subconscious. How do we experience this physically? In the era of lockdown where I haven't seen art in six months, what is it that I long for? Is it the physicality of the experience that is so important?

Art controls time. What always amazes me is how time slows and expands and then contracts suddenly and you snap out of it. The mental lull you can't quite quantify how long it was, happened a priori to realising it.

We come up a painting for example. We investigate with our eyes and travel the art piece. We mark its boundaries and note place, its distance and its volume. Once we know its shape we set ourselves back from it. We allow it to choose to come to us like am errant puppy. If it wants to come it will.

If and when it does - it then settles and takes up a comfortable position somewhere above the bellybutton but below the heart. I imagine it as a pseudo-phantom-humanoid-being in dark grey wisps of smoke with only a wry smile visible on its assumed face. It sits cross legged and reaches a hand-like tendril up to my neck, brushing against the chest cavity, taking up any available space. It tickles just below the amygdala and adds weight to an already heavy head, so I raise an arm to support us

just beneath the chin.

I allow this inner hand to reach up and through my eyes to point out what I could only see now, not before the invasion. As the hand recedes, leaving me feel slightly emptier as a result, it brushes past my vocal chords and a gentle sighing 'hmmm' emerges from my throat through still closed lips.

It got in. I got out.