Youthful Old Masters

A friend of mine remarked today that when she turned 25, she noticed she couldn't party so hard any more. I'm at an age where friends are having babies and buying houses and complaining about losing their youth. There are moments where I fall into the same trap, but more often than not, I find myself a little puzzled by this notion of youth.

I was lucky to grow up in a household where childlike curiosity and appetite for adventure was encouraged. My elderly father does more in a month than many people do in a year or two of their life - traveling to Japan for an ice festival, viewing the Masters tennis tournament in Shanghai, attending the Toronto International Film Festival.

So I smiled today when I read an article in one of my favourite art blogs, written by Jonathan Jones of The Guardian. He writes about the current exhibition of works by Cy Twombly at the Gagosian Gallery in London. I was introduced to Cy Twombly only 10 years back, by my then-painting instructor, Brigid Watson, who has since become one of tinku gallery's artists. Twombly was and still is, one of her favourite artists and has since become one of mine.

There is something so energetic and youthful about his work, despite him being old enough to be my grandfather! His drips, smudges and markings exhibit a free spirit that seems impossible in someone who has lived a long life full of its inevitable challenges and scars and constraints. Jones writes "No young artist uses paint more subversively than Twombly. No one is further from the staid definitions of 'proper art' that conservative critics cling to. But if Twombly is wild he is also supremely adept"

I have always had friends of all ages - even now, some of most subversive and interesting friends are in their 50s & 60s, while people in my peer group are living a rather ordinary existence. I love people who push the envelope of what is considered to be proper for a particular age. I hope that when I am 80, I am living as passionate, adventurous and brave a life as I am today. Here's to us all being Youthful Old Masters!

Image: The Rose (IV), Cy Twombly. Photograph: Mike Bruce/PR