orsi [cowell-lehoczky]

An artwork has two lives:
The first one starts with the conception, a reaction to influencing factors, an idea, emotions that trigger the creative process. During this time it grows into a fully formed work of art: a composed expression of that process. Then begins its second, independent life. As the artist moves on to the next challenge, the work becomes it’s own advocate: it will gain a new meaning by each and every new pair of eyes that appreciates, or forms an opinion of it. And so, sheds its close attachment to the idea it originates from, until eventually the viewer loses much - or even all - of the first hand knowledge, as the artist’s original intent fades from memory. We are essentially left with the knowledge of what that work has to say to us. Contexts change over time, the present becomes history.... And that’s how it should be.

(© Orsi Cowell-Lehoczky)