Global Gallery

Daniel Brophy

I live in an attic that has become a studio. Before me my brothers Timothy and Matt lived in there. I would always ask if I could sleep with them when I was younger and I would always wet their... read more I live in an attic that has become a studio. Before me my brothers Timothy and Matt lived in there. I would always ask if I could sleep with them when I was younger and I would always wet their bed. In the attic we would have sub sandwich parties a couple times during the year and the pillow fights gave me headaches. After Timothy and Matt, my sisters Jessica and Mary moved into the attic. It became a library and salon, the sisters' four corners of the earth, as they liked to call it. Then one day it somehow became my haven, my room that somehow became my studio, as I became more determined and confident in the possibility and impossibility of being an artist. So now I am an artist, a clumsy Christian I confess with questions I don't think will ever be answered, but questions I somehow believe I have to become one with in the art that I somehow create, sometimes at odd times of the day, as a whole, I am human, I am artist, and such things give me hope, a daring thing maybe, but hope it is still, to live and observe the world, the baking worms on the sidewalks wiggling to the nearest ground of dirt. Let us Love, let us Linger, let us Love ... in our attics. Many have viewed my art and immediately they claimed their mood drooped to some strange depressed-state. Some said it was "scary". Some said it was dark. And, yes, one said it seemed "hopeless". In all of my work, however, I try to offer hope, although at the foreground or forefront of it, it may appear hopeless. Homelessness. Poverty. Hunger. Men under bridges with rain dripping on their scruffy faces. Every day I am exposed to these tragedies. I can't help but to address them, somehow. But in them, in the corners, in the cracks of the paint, or on the walls in graffiti, their is some message of hope for the viewer. I guess what I want to say, In our darkest most depressing of times, there is hope, we just have to find it, to look at our life, to listen to it, and find it. Hear the rain plop on your air conditioner in the early morning. Hear the wind move the trees like ocean waves. Hear the noises of a little child calling for your name. The things that we can easily overlook, I guess I feel compelled to address them. It is not always easy with my schedule, but I have to force my self to breath and then stop. The importance of knowing hopelessness? There seems to be a lot of it around us and in our own lives. Yes, I think so. Is it really such though? Is it an illusion? This is the question we might all ask ourselves. Do people choose to hide from it? We have many things to diverge from the truth, do we not? It is very easy, who has the time to truly look at life? To use their minds? Their eyes? The importance of facing hopelessness? One needs to see it, feel it, be fully naked before it, experience suffering and pain, before they will be given the eyes to know true hope, before they will be given the heart that can be transformed into a thing that knows how to function and work how it should, how it was always meant to function, as a changing and living thing that pumps life into our souls and desires to seek ultimate glory and enlightenment. ... I hope to truly say one day, at the conclusion of my life, that I lost my life, and in doing so, I found it, and have nothing to fear. These are the words of Christ, and I hold on to them. I believe in Spirituality. I believe in risks. And I believe there are people in the world who we must know. I believe our lives to be mystery, and that in itself is wonderful. It is a moment of capture, like catching fire flies for the first time in our palm and the flickering light glowing our eyes in wonder, and then of course freeing the little creatures, and seeing the kingdom of lights in the bushes and mighty oaks flashing on and off, producing a great energy in the dusk hour.