"When depicting a flower, a dancer does not only depict a mere flower but the 'original' flower of creativity. When a dancer performs the death of a swan, she does not merely show the death of an animal but the mortality of a beautiful, vulnerable creature and the bereavement felt by those who had shared this experience.

An Indian classical dancer possesses the power of suggestion through the metaphor and symbols that she uses. Her gestures and facial expressions stir up 'rasa' in the viewer. So powerful is the actor/dancer that the Natya Sastra expounds that there is no axiom, no concept in the Universe that cannot be expressed in Dance.

Picasso's Guernica also does exactly this! This amazing work has the capability to express through its intense imagery the power of evoking the pain and suffering experienced during war. We feel the dehumanisation of living beings, the anguish and misery, when we humans turn on each other and unleash our worst possible destructive characteristics.

The poetry of art is certainly emphasised and underscored when work is layered with rich metaphors which utilise and exploit the rich reservoir of our collective consciousness and Myths.

This is the magic of the Metaphor - it emphasises our shared humanity where our Life is concerned. Metaphors heighten our aesthetic experience and the work hence becomes 'Art'!"

- Datuk Ramli Ibrahim
Chairman, Sutra Foundation (Malaysia)
(Padma Shri and Sangeet Natak Awardee from the Government of India)