Issue 5

Welcome to the fifth volume of Art IDEAL, an exploration of contemporary aesthetics. This edition brings together a wide spectrum of voices from across the globe, each presenting their practice with conviction, imagination, and originality. Within these pages, painting, sculpture, photography, printmaking, mixed and digital media coexist in dialogue, revealing not only the richness of form but also the multiplicity of perspectives that shape contemporary art.

What emerges is not a singular theme but a polyphony of concerns that feel especially vital today. Many artists explore abstraction as a way to process rhythm, gesture, and materiality, while others ground their work in the close observation of nature or the investigation of human psychology. Across these approaches, the works confront pressing issues of identity, memory, environment, and technology. Their significance lies not only in their beauty but also in their ability to act as mirrors and interlocutors, allowing us to see both the external world and our inner selves anew.

As John Berger reminded us in Ways of Seeing, art alters not only what we look at but also how we look. That proposition feels urgent today, when attention is so often consumed by the velocity of images and external distraction.  Contemporary theorists like Hito Steyerl have extended this inquiry into the digital sphere, asking us to consider how images circulate, mutate, and shape our sense of truth and reality. To look at art now is therefore not simply to appreciate beauty but to participate in an act of cultural and personal reflection, a reorientation of perception that can be both critical and restorative.

This book affirms the role of art as a cultural force: it gives voice to artists, provides a space for contemplation, and invites viewers into encounters that can be transformative. The diversity of practices demonstrates that contemporary art is not one voice but many, layered, resonant, and open to discovery.

I invite you to leaf through the pages of this book, pause, disconnect from the noise, and let the art connect you back to yourself. Any time spent with art is time well invested. And when a piece speaks to you, consider keeping that connection alive by collecting it, allowing art to become part of your own life and experience.