My Favorite Painting
When I first landed in New York 7 years ago, I felt so lost. I didn’t know anyone here, I’d never used public transport, and the few dollars in my pocket felt too precious to spend. My apartment in Bushwick was a so different from what I was used to back home. And my roommates had accents I’d never heard before. I probably had an accent they’d never heard before!
Over the next few weeks, I got used to the freezing cold, figured out how to use the subway, learned about 2% milk, and accepted the free soda they’d give me at the falafel stand next to my home. I was new to the city so I decided to do everything I could for as cheap as possible.
And so I found myself at MoMA on a Friday evening. This was the first time going somewhere formal so I wore my best winter coat and combed my hair with the best gel I could find at the dollar store.
I don’t know a lot about art. I couldn’t tell you what an artist was trying to explore through the piece. What style, technique, cultural context they were exhibiting through their art.
I walked past an art installation of a wheel stuck to a chair. There were some kids laughing at it. I guess that’s what the piece meant to them. Something that invokes humor.
I walked past what I thought was a poster but later found out what a painting of a series of soup cans. I saw some people trying to find the tomato soup can. I guess that’s what the piece meant to them. An exercise to find acceptable sustenance.
I walked past a huge crowd standing in front of a painting. I waited patiently for my turn to get to the front. It was a painting of a town, with spirals for the sky, and spirals for the moon, and spirals for the clouds, and spirals for the mountains. Everyone was trying to take a selfie with it. I guess that’s what the piece meant to them. Being part of the cultural zeitgeist.
I’m not a big fan of crowds. So I tried to find a quiet corner in the room. I found a spot towards the end of the hallway, with a wide pillar, a yellow dim light shining on a postcard on the center of the wall.
I don’t know a lot about art. I couldn’t tell you what the artist was trying to explore through the piece. But nothing - before, since, or after - has affected me the way this piece did. The darkness at the bottom melted into my soul. It felt like I was giving rise to the colors, the shapes, the trees, the mountains, life itself rising from within. I felt it slowly melting away back into the void, into me. I forgot about living in another country. I forgot about me. My ideas. My wants. My needs. My ego. I forgot about the life ahead, the life behind.
I couldn’t feel the boundaries of my body for a while. I can’t remember how I made it back home that night.
I guess that’s what the piece meant to me. Me.