There are many aspects of these videos which I think highlight a true spirit of creativity. Firstly is the content and style itself. The evolution of shapes from one to another, from organic to material, and sometimes from paintings to physical objects, has a wonderful surreal spirit.

The execution is also wonderful. In order for the video to come together, the artist would need to have imagined not only how to draw each figure, but the intermediate steps as they morph from one to another. Even more than this, he accepted the limitations of the medium he was working within, which was that it was very difficult to erase the evidence of paint from each previous step, leading to this sort of white paint shadow of history. And often you can still see the darker marks of the previous painting.

Which leads me to what I appreciate the most about this creative work of art: it isn’t working towards perfection. Working outside the light is constantly changing, sometimes people get in the way, and there is a limited amount of time (and paint) to complete the work. The end result is that the video looks smudgy, messy and imperfect. If you looked at any one of the images the artist painted before he took the digital picture, you might not be impressed (although some stills, especially the building-sized ones, were quite impressive to me). But when it all comes together it doesn’t matter. Each individual painting only lasts a few minutes anyway, before it is partially painted over and moved, so it is all very temporary anyway. But it all comes together for the end result, which is beautiful both despite and because of its flaws.

More artists should have the courage to go out into the world and not let the fear of perfection cripple them.

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