HOW TO LOOK AT ART: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW TO FIND INNER PEACE
“To see deeply, we have to first learn the art of stopping.”
Once considered solely the pastime of monks and those seeking spiritual enlightenment, meditation was (when I was growing up at least) largely dismissed as woo-woo nonsense. In the last few years, however, its popularity has skyrocketed thanks to the advances in neuroscience that have demonstrated its positive effects on our brains. With mental health issues on the rise but, thankfully, increased awareness surrounding them, meditation is fast-becoming an integral part of our day. Now, everyone from CEOs to celebrities are attributing regular meditation to their success, and the practice has gone mainstream.
It’s big business: the global meditation market is currently valued at over $5billion and is expected to increase to over $20billion in the next 6 years. Interestingly, it is those who have been brought up on a societal diet of comparison and competitiveness, thanks to the likes of Instagram and TikTok, who are turning to meditation to manage insecurity and stress levels. Almost a quarter of Gen Z (those born between 1996-2010) are reported to engage in a regular practice.
If you want to experience the benefits of meditation for yourself but are still attached to the idea that it’s for hippies, the good news is that you don’t have to go all ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ and hot-foot it to an ashram in India for six months. You don’t have to get up at 4am and devote hours to sitting in silence in the lotus position. In fact, you don’t even have to close your eyes.
Using art as a visual anchor can help you stay in the present moment.
Art therapy has been used for many years as a way to help those suffering: expressing emotion through creativity offers a profound release and has been proven to alleviate symptoms of depression. My own work as an artist is born from a long (ongoing) healing process. When I was young it was a coping mechanism: drawing pencil portraits in meticulous detail was a way of maintaining an element of control and dissociating from the external chaos. In contrast, today painting is my way of being present - a mental space where I can be completely in the moment. The free, intuitive abstracts in my gallery are a product of vastly improved mental hygiene and it became my mission to pay it forward and create work to help others who are suffering, regardless of their artistic ability.
However, after taking a deep dive in to why certain artworks can produce such a profound emotional reaction, I discovered that the cognitive effect of simply looking at a painting is very similar to what we experience during meditation. There is elevated activity in the region of the brain related to pleasure, blood flow is increased and dopamine and serotonin are released. This results in heightened feelings of bliss and a mental featheriness that can only be compared to the alpha state of mind that we enter during meditation.
In this digital world we are bombarded with, and distracted by, a cacophony of information that largely only serves to heighten anxiety and keep our stress response on red alert. The more we look at, the less we see and the more disconnected we become - from others but especially from ourselves. We have shorter attention spans than ever and the fast-paced social media ‘scrollercoaster’ that many of us ride daily only exacerbates the problem. According to the Tate gallery in London, visitors now spend an average of just eight seconds looking at each artwork. However, to really get to know a piece of art and, ultimately yourself, better you need to linger for longer.
“In my opinion, understanding the artwork itself is not important, it’s simply a tool you can use to understand yourself.”
Slow looking, or visual meditation as I call it, is a directed mindfulness practice that uses art to take us off auto-pilot and bring our awareness in to the present moment. In my opinion, understanding the artwork itself is not important, it’s simply a tool you can use to understand yourself. All art provokes an emotional reaction and by spending time in visual meditation it acts as a mirror, reflecting back your true feelings in the moment. The late Buddhist monk and Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh said, “To see deeply, we have to first learn the art of stopping.” Looking at art forces you in to stillness and taking time to study a piece with deliberate intention (I recommend a minimum of ten minutes) helps you to connect with your inner self. It then coaxes you to go deeper, to explore the emotions that arise and to notice the sensations inside your body while doing so.
An exteroceptive, or ‘eyes open’ meditation like this can be more suited to those who find they are easily distracted when practicing traditional techniques. It is also highly effective for people whose default setting is of a more interoceptive nature. If you’re prone to overthinking and future-tripping, using art to keep your focus anchored in the present moment can get you out of your head and in to your body.
This holistic approach to viewing art - seeing with your heart, not just your eyes - reinforces a mind/body connection which can enhance the meditative experience. While it may not replace medication for more serious conditions it can certainly be used to combat everyday stress and mood-based challenges. By learning to unlock healing power of art you are adding a valuable asset to your self-care toolkit.
Note: this article first appeared in Brand You magazine (Feb 2023)