A couple of years ago, a wonderful friend of mine called me boring. I still consider him a wonderful friend because he made me realize that yes, I was boring – or, more precisely, I was very mainstream. I liked music that was played on the radio, read books that were features on the Oprah Club, went to places that were advertised on billboards and newspapers – in other words, I kind of did what I was told by mainstream media.

Thankfully we have this lovely thing called the Internet now and I set to work, trying to find things that were a little less mainstream, opening up to different types of art forms and expressions of art. It’s all the harder that I am more of a scientist than an artist, but the challenge has been quite fulfilling and has made me an even better scientist. Go figure.

There is one thing that I have noticed though. The simpler the artform and the truer it is to reflecting the human spirit, the more it has an impact on people. Which is why I am of the opinion that the work of Slinkachu will, if properly marketed, blow the minds of millions of people away.

I can’t claim to have found Slinkachu; he found me. Or rather, the BBC gave him to me. Ironically enough, I was taking time off from writing and spending a well-deserved evening in front of the TV screen. I wasn’t planning on doing any thinking, which begs the question: why was I watching the BBC?

But thankfully I was, because I discovered something that has been fascinating me since then. I have taken the liberty of importing some pictures from Slinkachu’s personal blog (which can be found at http://little-people.blogspot.com). They are in no particular order and aren’t necessarily my favorite ones, but they are definitely fascinating, beautifully done and, for some, very thought provoking.

One particularity of Slinkachu’s art is that he makes his installations, takes pictures of them, and then… leaves them behind. So no one know what really happens to them. I’m taking a wild guess that because of their small size, not many of them survive very long (which is sad). Hopefully his work will become a household name soon enough that more individuals will spot his work and… take them home? Hmmm. Wouldn’t that defeat the very purpose of street art?

Maybe then art isn’t always supposed to last forever. Maybe we are not even meant to keep a firm grasp on artistic marvels. Maybe we need to take example on the greatest Artist that ever was and ever will be – God. He makes beautiful things and creates beautiful events all the time, but none of them ever last. While it might sound terribly cliché (or, dare I say, mainstream), but the fact remains that a flower only remains beautifully in bloom for so long. A sunrise always ends and so does a sunset. Perfect moments – when the cars on the road are perfectly coordinated, when people in a crowd are walking in synchrony, when the colors and textures of the side road we always drive on inexplicably, for one awe-striking moment, are perfect – all these are a demonstration of God’s Art. And they never last.

So maybe Slinkachu is one of the only true artists out there, one who knows that real art isn’t about lasting forever, but rather about making a lasting impression.