Art and Soul

Book excerpt: One of our foremost female artists conducts us on a visionary journey into the heart of the creative process At a time when the art world is dominated by trendy egotists and art itself is marketed like toothpaste, Audrey Flack is both an anachronism and a revolutionary: a photorealist painter and sculptor who eschews glamour and who clings to a vision of art as a form of shamanism—a means of self-transcendence whose ultimate aim is the healing of the planet. In this provocative book, Flack shows how the transcendence occurs, in the art of looking as well as in the moment of creation. With its wonderfully acute critiques of artists from Tintoretto to Jackson Pollock and its insistence on reforging the links between the artist and larger world, Art and Soul is a brave, nourishing book that will inspire not only visual artists but anyone who has chosen the creative path.