For those of you who are lying down but have the brains to walk.
Archipelagotimes.com – In a suburb that never really sleeps but never fully wakes up, an old painting teacher holds an afternoon class in a semi-permanent studio, with plywood walls and remnants of election posters that have never been removed. Across the street, there is a photocopy kiosk that also sells fried foods, and sometimes—if it rains heavily—the place changes its function into a patrol post. The students came in all sorts of ways: from high school students who did not pass SNMPTN to housewives who needed an escape from cooking. Then came a new young man: flat face, shrewd hands, but if you were told to say “thank you,” you had to be asked three times. Behind the sketches and brushstrokes, the teacher felt: “This is a boy who can draw clouds, but he can’t read the sky.”
According to a report by the World Economic Forum, the emotional expression of the younger generation is actually declining as access to visual technology increases. Ironically, in the era of colorful Instagram filters, more and more people are colorblind about taste. One study from the University of Indonesia even mentioned that 6 out of 10 urban teenagers are more comfortable sending emojis than directly saying their hearts. Maybe that’s why their paintings are beautiful, but quiet.
The teacher, who is usually firm with a line of perspective, this time is caught in a gradient: not because of technicality, but because of feelings. Every time the student mixed the orange from the red and yellow, the teacher saw the twilight: not the one in the sky, but the one slowly descending on his chest. Love, apparently, also knows the blending mode. It cannot be immediately thickened like an outline. It needs layers, opacity, and sometimes… Undo.
And as always, the strongest feelings come not from what is spoken, but from what is held. How do you feel about all the colors that never become rainbows? It may be like a painting stored in a warehouse: waiting to be understood, not just seen.