The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes

Host: The warehouse stood at the edge of the city, half-forgotten, its walls covered with graffiti that bled like old memories into the crumbling concrete. Inside, the air smelled of paint, dust, and rain that had leaked through the roof. A single lightbulb flickered, casting long, uneven shadows across canvases—some wild, some empty, some just screams of color on white silence.

Jack stood near one of them, a tall, lean figure in a dark coat, his grey eyes reflecting the shattered light. Jeeny was kneeling by the corner, mixing paints, her fingers already stained with blue and crimson. The rain outside drummed against the windows, as if impatient for their words to begin.

Jeeny: (quietly) “Ellen Key once said, ‘The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract.’ Do you think that’s true, Jack?”

Jack: (without looking at her) “Yeah. The world’s gone mad. Maybe art just gave up trying to make sense of it.”

Host: His voice was rough, carrying a fatigue deeper than anger. He moved closer to the painting before him—an explosion of red and black, violent strokes cutting through emptiness.

Jeeny: “Or maybe it’s not giving up. Maybe it’s adapting. When reality is too ugly to paint straight, the heart finds new languages to speak.”

Jack: “Languages no one understands. Look at this.” (He gestured at the canvas.) “What is this supposed to be? War? Despair? Or just chaos for the sake of it?”

Jeeny: “It’s feeling, Jack. The kind that can’t be translated into shapes or faces anymore. The kind that’s beyond what we can bear to look at.”

Host: A gust of wind rattled the window, and a drop of rain slid down the glass, mirroring the tears she refused to shed.

Jack: “I miss when art actually meant something. When painters told stories, not just splattered their insides on a wall. When beauty was still a virtue, not a crime.”

Jeeny: “But, Jack—beauty is still there. It’s just hiding. The more horrifying the world becomes, the more we need art that doesn’t flatter, but shields. Abstract art isn’t an escape; it’s armor.”

Host: Her words hung in the air, like dust motes dancing in the light, fragile, yet certain.

Jack: “Armor? Against what? Reality?”

Jeeny: “Against numbness.”

Host: That word struck him. His eyes flickered, a flinch beneath the surface.

Jeeny: “You see it, don’t you? Every day—the news, the violence, the lies. People scroll through horrors like they’re weather updates. Art becomes abstract because language has failed. Because we’ve seen too much to paint the faces anymore.”

Jack: “You sound like one of those critics who can justify anything with a sentence about feelings.”

Jeeny: (smiling sadly) “And you sound like someone who’s forgotten how to feel.”

Host: The lightbulb flickered again, casting her face half in shadow, half in flame. For a moment, the silence was so thick that the rain outside seemed like the heartbeat of the world itself.

Jack: “You think this is feeling?” (He pointed at another canvas—an abstract mass of grey, splattered with streaks of white.) “That’s just noise, Jeeny. You could call it ‘Despair’ or ‘Hope’ or ‘Morning Coffee,’ and no one would know the difference.”

Jeeny: “That’s the point. It’s not about knowing. It’s about recognizing yourself in the mess. When Picasso painted Guernica, people said it was too chaotic, too ugly—but it was truth, Jack. Truth in a world that had bombed its own soul.”

Jack: “Picasso had a war to paint. What do we have now? Screens. Algorithms. Noise. Maybe art got abstract because the artists stopped seeing.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe they saw too much.”

Host: The rain intensified, hammering the roof like an applause from the sky. Jack turned, his jaw tightening, his voice low, measured, almost dangerous.

Jack: “You really think abstraction can save us from that?”

Jeeny: “Not save. But speak for us. When words turn into weapons, only colors can whisper what’s left of our souls.”

Host: Her hand lifted, brushing a streak of red across a blank canvas, her fingers trembling, her eyes distant, as if she were painting something only she could see.

Jack: “You sound like you believe art still matters.”

Jeeny: “It’s the only thing that ever did.”

Host: The lightbulb buzzed, flickered, and then stabilized, casting them both in a pale halo of light. The paint on the walls gleamed like blood, shadow, and memory.

Jack: “You know, when I was a kid, my mother used to paint too. She’d sit by the window every evening, trying to capture the sunset. After my father died, she stopped. She said there was no more color in the world.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s when she should’ve started painting abstracts.”

Host: He looked at her—long, unblinking—as if those words had cut through years of silence he never wanted to admit.

Jack: “You think that would’ve helped?”

Jeeny: “It might’ve helped her see that the color never left—it just stopped being obedient. It started bleeding into places we don’t expect. That’s what art does when life becomes unbearable. It refuses to make sense.”

Host: He turned back toward the canvas, his hand hovering over it like someone about to touch a wound.

Jack: “Maybe we’re all just trying to find a way to paint what can’t be forgiven.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. Or maybe we’re just learning to see the world through its cracks.”

Host: A slow, heavy silence settled again. Outside, the rain had softened into a gentle drizzle. The light caught the drops on the window, breaking them into tiny spectrums—each a small fragment of the world’s grief and beauty.

Jack: “So, the more horrifying the world becomes…”

Jeeny: “…the more abstract we must become to survive it.”

Host: He nodded, and for the first time, his lips curved into something like a smile—faint, fragile, but real. Jeeny watched him, eyes soft, breathing slow.

The lightbulb finally stopped flickering. The warehouse was quiet, except for the sound of rain and the soft brush of paint on canvas—two souls, still wounded, still searching, turning their pain into shape, their fear into color.

And in that moment, the world’s horror was still there—just… abstracted, like a scream turned into music, like truth too raw to name, but still alive in art.