Jokester and Paintings (This week's Photo Hunt themes)

Art can inspire, art can provoke, and art can also make one smile, grin, chuckle, giggle and even laugh out loud. These are things I realize pretty much each time that I go check out works at an art museum, gallery or fair such as the Hong Kong International Art Fair, also known as Art HK (which I've been attending since 2009).

For the past few years now, Japanese jokester-artist Takashi Murakami's paintings of smiley flowers (see a previous year's example here) have never failed to bring smiles to my face along with that of many other Art HK visitors. At this year's Art HK, I also found myself smiling (back) at American artist Jeff Koons' monkey paintings (or are they prints? Ah well... let's just call them paintings to fit better with both Sandi's and Gattina's Photo Hunts this week! ;b).

If truth be told though, I often find more jokesters among the ranks of sculptors than painters and artists working in other media. And while it's true that Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama has created paintings as well as other types of art, it was her Flowers that Bloom at Midnight sculptures that caught the eye the most at Art HK this year.  

Seeing the obvious enjoyment and pleasure that many people -- especially children -- get out of Yayoi Kusama's works, it comes as a bit of a shock to realize that the artist is 83 years old this year.  Then there's the fact that she has been voluntarily living in a mental home since 1977... all of which gets me thinking that while some people believe that genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration, sometimes a little bit of madness helps too!