Art is more than meets the eye

You might think that drawing or painting is just a hobby or simply a pastime. But there is so much more to art.

At first glance, it might seem an enormously abstract and unusual picture. One that you might look at for hours, but mainly for the visual effect. The actual meaning remains secondary for most people - because why should there be anything profound on a canvas?

This artwork, by a 14-year-old 9th grade student, has left something very significant for me. Each of the painted and fabricated elements has been well thought out and taken a great deal of time and effort to create.

Various techniques and symbolizations were used, which you have to decipher before you can interpret the actual title of the work. The painting was called "The Hellish Game of Chance". The artist felt that this name was the most appropriate because it better captured the overall message.

The core message of the painting is: "The fate of life writes no rules - it dances between chance and decision." To illustrate this idea, the chaos of chance and decision is represented in the picture by the main elements of the playing cards and the dice.

The playing cards often symbolize chance, luck and the unpredictable - they remind us that much in life depends on fate.

At the same time, playing cards also embody social structures: the figures - king, queen, jack

- represent hierarchies and role models that are anchored in society. In addition, the card game stands for the risk and uncertainty of human decisions. The dice symbolize the fine line between control and loss of control. They stand for the moment in which everything can be decided. They thus challenge the viewer: How much is in our hands and how much is mere throw?

The background is balanced with a chessboard. However, the chessboard is only filled with black squares, which stands for the inevitable and one-sided fate. In other words, life is a game, something between strategy and decision. The white clay wings, which are bloodstained and dirty, also carry a dense, multi-layered meaning. First and foremost, they stand for the soul and life. The white color indicates purity, but the dirt and blood tell of failure, sacrifice and guilt.

Thus the picture carries far more than 1000 words; it unfolds a profound and multi-layered meaning that points to the complete interweaving of fate, coincidences and human decisions.