art – Seite 16 – by GG – Fine Art Photography

What Is Beauty?

“Beauty is no quality in things themselves:
It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them;
and each mind perceives a different beauty.”
David Hume: Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary.
Part I, Essay 23: Of the Standard of Taste (1741-2; 1748)

A few days ago a friend of mine got me thinking. He said he would like my Skies, their romanticism and calmness. But, he added, he would miss the spectacular. He had me doubting. Are my Skies missing something? Are they too ordinary? Not beautiful enough? And what is beauty anyway? I guess that is what it comes down to. What is beauty?

Is beauty only in the extraordinary? Does something or someone have to be different or unusual to be beautiful? I do not want to get too philosophical here, these questions have been asked before and there is no single answer; everybody has to find their own answer. But these questions brought me back to where I have been before: I want to show the world as it is. I want to find beauty in everything I see. If I find something spectacular, fine. But there is also so much beauty in our everyday life! We just seem to lose sight of that, seem to overlook it under all the impressions that rain down on us every day. And maybe our sense of beauty has changed with all that?

My friend also said that after having looked at the pictures on my website, he had started to look into the real sky more often again, amazed at the beauty he saw there, surprised that he had forgotten.

Skies by Gabriele Golissa™ Photographs Now Available on ARTmine

“Union gives strength.”
Aesop (620 – 564 BCE), The Old Man and his Sons / The Bundle of Sticks from Aesop’s Fables

Prints of a selection of my photographs are now available for sale on ARTmine. This website makes contemporary fine art accessible worldwide and is run by New York’s Agora Gallery. ARTmine only shows the work of artists represented by or affiliated with the gallery. It has become an important resource for private as well as corporate art collectors, art consultants, and interior designers.

Angela Di Bello, director of Agora Gallery and editor-in-chief of ARTisSpectrum Magazine, has selected 16 of my photographs for ARTmine. I really like her choices; she picked some of my favorite Skies. Take a look at my artist page on ARTmine to find out more.

A Wonderful Rainbow over Beijing

A wonderful rainbow over Beijing's Confucius Temple, 2016. “Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
There’s a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby”
Edgar Yipsel „Yip“ Harburg, Over the Rainbow, 1939,
sung by Judy Garland in the movie “The Wizard of Oz”

In Beijing again. It is still really hot here, but most of the time the air is clear and the skies are blue. I love Beijing’s temples, I feel transported into a world long gone by. Staying away from major tourist hot spots or visiting them at less crowded times, I can still feel a hint of old Beijing. I find myself a quiet spot, inhale the atmosphere, take a look at all the beautiful buildings, trees, flowers, and places of worship. And of course I take my camera and try to capture these moments.

Yesterday, I visited the Temple of Confucius (北京孔廟, Běijīng Kǒngmiào), which is more of a museum than a temple these days and also a wonderful place not only for people who want to learn more about Confucianism. We had walked there along the river, enjoying another wonderful summer day, and were in the middle of the compound when all of the sudden the sky turned grey with clouds, a wind got up, and the birds fluttered about nervously. Then there was thunder, some rain, and after a little while, the clouds began to disappear again. And when the sun broke through, we saw a wonderful double rainbow and the light casted a spell over everyone and everything.

by Gabriele Golissa Now Represented by Agora Gallery, New York

“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming,
we lose the excitement of possibilities.
Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.”
Gloria Steinem

I am so excited! I am now represented by Agora Gallery in New York. Agora is a contemporary art gallery founded in 1984 and located in Chelsea, New York’s gallery district. In ancient Greek cities, the agora was a central gathering place and also a marketplace. And this is what Agora Gallery is as well: a meeting place for artists, art lovers, and collectors as well as a place to sell and buy art.

Angela Di Bello, the gallery’s director, said: “I feel that Gabriele’s distinctive expression will resonate well at Agora Gallery, with our art buyers, media contacts and our local and international viewing audience.”

You will soon find some of my photographs on Agora Gallery’s fine art sales website and there will also be an exhibition in early 2017. More news on that later… For now, I just wanted to share these new and sooo very exciting developments!

Sky Gazing as a Buddhist Meditation Technique: The Great Perfection (Dzogchen)

“Our mind is like a cloudy sky, in essence clear and pure but overcast by the clouds of delusions. Just as the thickest clouds eventually disperse, so too even the heaviest delusions can be removed from our mind (…), and we shall experience the supreme happiness of full enlightenment.”
Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Eight Steps to Happiness: The Buddhist Way of Loving Kindness, 2000, p. 1

I’ve said before that I am absolutely fascinated by all sorts of skies and could spend hours watching clouds. I know that I am not alone with that and now a friend told me that in Buddhism, the sky plays an important role as well.

Within Tibetan Buddhism for example, there exists a meditation technique called sky gazing where you look into a preferably blue sky with open eyes allowing your thoughts to pass by like clouds. Gazing into the skies, you become aware of the vast open space and can reconnect with the natural state of existence, and can eventually—according to Buddhist teachings—achieve enlightenment.

So, go out there and (re)discover all the beauty that is in the skies… <!–and on a grey day, maybe come back to this website and watch a slideshow to find enlightenment here here :-)–>