It must be so liberating to depict a world that may not exist, or elevate a side to life often ignored and forgotten. To dream is to escape reality – imagine being able to recreate this escapism. In a way, artists who have taken their visions, dreams and even nightmares and dared to chronicle them in their work possess the ability to portray escapism. From Pablo Picasso's depictions of those dreaming to Marc Chagall depicting his own dreams, dreams in art is not a modern concept. Such an exploration has revealed both the fantastic and the dark, the divine and the prophetic whilst attempt to recreate the indescribable. What cannot be described may be too painful to depict, thus the beauty in escapism was conveyed by the likes of Chagall in The Dream (1939) when living through the beginning of World War II. To paint color that only exists in your mind paired with optimism or nostalgia (or indeed doubt), is no mean feat. In Artsper's own collection of works, Irina Bast depicts beauty with paint whilst Minas Halaj uses her floral-clad portraits of dreamlike figures to question the concept of beauty as a double-edged sword. Both highlight that dreams, their dreamlike characters and the light and color they omit are quintessentially of the artists beautiful mind… for us to then to find meaning.
