Make Sense of This, You Are My Friend

Jeff Lyons, the illustrator of this painting, comments on the comments others have made at http://lyonsart.com/wordpress/surrealism-abstract-artwork/; he explains that there is no symbolism in paintings of his like this one: “These are essentially meaningless images.” Acknowledged… Because I spent two hours looking for any image that was not copyright protected, though, I am going to pretend that some kind of analysis of this image other than an aesthetic one is able to be made and attempt to make a few such examinations.

At first glance, the “surrealist abstract artwork” looks to be a picture of some kind of eastern dragon, such as the ones that roam the streets during Chinese New Year. The red curtains on either side are pulled aside to release the “beast.“ The green figure on top is the horns. The “house-like things” on either side could be the eyes. All the blue and orange (bright colors, such as the ones splashed onto the Oriental dragons) make up the nose and mouth region. The blue “C” shapes, the curved part inside them, would be the snout extending from the face. The minuscule brick region in the middle would be the actual orifice that would take in food and release fire. The tiny figures on the tiled floor are most likely humans, which gives the paining a somewhat eerie feeling (as if the alien-like figure on top (green skin tone and cloak, white eyes without pupils, mouth agape, slight horns, pose), surrounded by some sort of aura, didn’t already). Such a small “mouth” on such a huge “creature” and we are still able to be consumed when anything else would be safe from such a tiny hole. The staircases on either side of the form are the legs, ironically. The towers on either side of the green figure at the top look as if they could be part of the whole “creature,” but the towers also look to be part of the windows surrounding the “dragon” and for the whole complex to be one solid body, keeping the “dragon theory” in mind, seems unlikely.

The multiplex may be nothing other than that. Red curtains are drawn to reveal a show or attraction and all the people, those behind and those blocked off by the curtain’s path, before being drawn, are aimed towards the only opening (there are stairs but the proportions make it look as though the stairs are at least three feet tall (assuming the humans are six feet high) and why climb when there is an open door); the red above the door signifies, if not says, “Vacancies.” In the open windows are shapes that look like hands… “beckoning people to come closer,” to be polite and optimistic. The green “man” on top must be the manager, or at least the magician, as that “man” must have been the one to open the massive curtains, to conjure the huge shadowy “limbs” in the windows. The “man’s” expression does not seem to be one of malice and mischief, but of concentration or surprise or ecstasy, if anything. Upon closer inspection, what I assumed to be the guardrail of the stairs, as they dipped down into the floor, may be the actual stairs. Following those lines up leads the eye to the windows of the towers on either side of the extraterrestrial, where there are two more “human-sized” shapes.

Random objects could have been thrown together, arranged symmetrically, to truly make nothing more than a “surrealist abstract” work of art. The central yellow part looks like a bell that has been filled with brick, to never resonate sound again. The white pieces in the middle of the bell, in the middle of the blue and yellow ornate decorations on the bell, look like a flower, with the blue and yellow surrounding it being the organs of the flower (perhaps the alien turned the flower inside-out to be able to examine more closely). The brick walls surrounding the bell are the walls of the garden. The buildings coming out of the sides of the bell are the groundskeepers’ shacks. The eaves above the doors are fanned out banana peels with cherries at the center of the “spokes.” The doorways are covered in lambs’ blood, to prevent plagues coming to their doorsteps. The gardeners gloat about their preparedness, hands in the windows, but the other inhabitants on the ground were not so thoughtful. They are being attracted by the alien’s bright tractor beam, emitting from the bottom of the bell-shaped UFO; the master’s mansion was converted to the space creature’s chambers. The two sentinels in the windows of the highest towers are the galaxy’s last defense: Alien escapes and everybody’s doomed.

I doubt if all, IF ANY, of this made sense but I just wanted to prove that whether the artist intends for there to be deeper meaning in their works or not, the more you dig, the more potential meaning can be found. Any meanings that are found, if enough evidence is present, can be proven to be right. The artist creates a world that we are sucked into and to hold our hand through the journey and tell us any meaning instead of making us find it renders art pointless. Again, how much sense this all made is another matter but just to find meaning that the creator did not intend to be found in their works is an accomplishment (…or maybe just a sign of a lack of a life).