To Paint Nightmares

Andrew ‘Android’ Jones is an artist who has embraced the digital age wholeheartedly. His work has a gestural quality, and is thick with layers and subtle details. The scenes and figures are highly emotive, conveying a sense of energy and tension.

I like the “techno” elements especially. These are usually symbols which have been treated as background information, but they accent lines of motion or centers of light. His use of color is also striking against a wash of monochromatic forms.

Something about the work seems unfinished, but this lends itself to the imagination. The vague borders and shadowy backgrounds have a certain mystery to them—it makes me wonder what’s just out of my sight.

But there’s also something I don’t like about his work. So much of it seems nightmarish and ominous—seemingly celebrating ugliness, death, and darkness. These are places I don’t want to go within myself. Yet I see more and more of this sort of imagery in pop culture and video games and concept art. What ever happened to beauty?

It makes me think of Lord of the Rings when Gandalf talks about Saruman’s study into the ‘arts of the enemy.’ Gandalf concludes that a study of that sort—when done too deeply—can eventually lead to becoming the enemy.

I wonder if the principle is the same for everything. What if envisioning the twisted and ugly figures of our ids causes them to frequent our minds more often? What if dwelling on nightmares makes them more prominent? What if ruminating on darkness makes us dark?

I think it matters. And I think that our imaginations and dreams are things too beautiful to waste on nightmares.