I adore the work of the Spanish painter, Salvador Dalí – Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marqués de Dalí de Pubol (May 11, 1904 – January 23, 1989). He was a skilled draftsman, but is best know for his striking work, labeled by many timid eyes, of his time and even today, as bizarre. Dali produced over 1,500 paintings in his career and left behind an expansive repertory of solo and collaborative works in painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, writing, and film. A surrealist with influences of the cubist and dadaist movements, his best-known masterpeice was ‘Persistence of Memory’ where he, questions the notion that time is fixed, completed in 1939.
Dali volleyed back and forth with the French surrealists, by whom he had been initially embraced, for their leftist politics for most of his career. Ultimately, he was subjected to a trial by a jury of his colleagues in the movement and was formally expelled. To this decision, he retorted, “I am surrealism.” Such was the nature of his confidence and dare. Dali has been cited as a major inspiration for modern artists such as Damien Hirst, Noel Fielding and Jeff Koons. Andy Warhol proclaimed Dali, an important influence on the pop art movement.
My passion for Dali lays principally in his eccentric dare, his freedom, in his work and in the way in which he lived. He loved “everything that is gilded and excessive.” All artists must be free I believe, we (dare I say) must to put aside convention and dare to dig deeper into ourselves and our human existence to find truths. If one isn’t free, one, in my opinion, can neither be sincere or truthful. Freedom is truth. Truth is freedom. Dali embodies, for me, the freedom and depth to which we must we commit ourselves to be able explore and connect to our greatest capacity to truly realize our distinct and authentic selves.