John Will

Allan Watts disagrees with Parmenides's Latin adage Ex nihilo nihil fit (Out of Nothing comes Nothing). I don't.

My recent work is an attempt to make art that is about nothing. I am finding it a difficult assignment but I still try. Big minds have groped with Nothingness: Hegel, Heidegger, Sartre, Aristotle, Russell, Van Inwagen, Spinoza, Yogiraj Siddhanath, Bergson, Pascal, Rodiquez-Peryra, Cran--oh, the list goes on and on and I have read them all and I only understand 10% of it... but 10% of nothing is still nothing. According to Heidegger, we shy away from the significance of nothingness because of the nothingness of death, the groundlessness of human existence. Others would suggest that this is why we try to rescue meaningfulness from hopelessness but Heidegger denies us this solace in that he lectures that freedom is rooted in nothingness. I would like to be free but when I make a painting about nothing, it implies that nothingness is something and I become a dog chasing its tail but I keep trying. My past work tried to be pertinent but was probably about as relevant as a wart on a witch's you-know-what and this, combined with the recent downturn in the economy, is why my inventory is so huge. As a result, I don't s...