The Enigma

Every human being has some or the other talent. What one considers talent can be fairly subjective. Talent can be anything from painting, dancing, debating, to making people around you happy. A recurrent opinion is that talent is a skill possessed by a person, often hidden or underappreciated or sometimes both. Talent is driven by passion. It is something that shouldn't be hidden because these skills possessed by people when introduced to the world will make it a better place. All people have something to offer if we just hear them out.

Emily Mills and Claire Trix are aspiring engineers at MIT, Boston. They are attending the art museum as part of their field trip. Immediately after Emily entered the museum, she gushed over the smooth interaction between beautiful vibrant colours. Emily loved art and she scoured the museum, looking for the paintings of one specific artist. This artist's identity was unknown to everyone and he or she was often called the enigma. Her friend Claire showed her the recent paintings of this artist , it was a painting of the sun partially hidden by the clouds which gave them a beautiful golden border, the flowers and trees were personified and were shown playing amongst the clouds, it was divine. As they were admiring the aesthetic beauty and creativity of the paintings their teacher Ms. Elsie called all the students and announced the conclusion of their visit to the museum.

While heading home, they were discussing the unique aspects of these paintings which made them a global master piece. According to Emily, the enigma posted their art online from an anonymous account but no one knows who this artist is. Another unique aspect of the paintings is the fact that the artist signed their paintings with numbers; it's always the same number on all the paintings. These are some of the main reasons this artist and his art is recognised world wide other than the fact that his paintings define art! Claire then added that there are some journalists who are trying to find the IP address of the account from which the paintings were posted in order to track it back to the artist, but this might have been just a rumour as pointed out by Emily as they shrugged the 'hacker journalist' theory off.

MEANWHILE IN THE NEWSROOM

Sky Keith, the lead journalist of a group of skilled journalists vowed to find the identity of the artist as the journalists who find the artist would get global publicity. They decided to trace the IP address of the online account from which the paintings are published. Tracing the IP address of a person is a tedious job for a regular journalist but a deadly combination of greed and money ensured that they received all the resources and manpower they needed to finish the job.

Soon enough they traced the IP address to a man in his late 20s named Ike Jason. He works as a graphic designer but is currently unemployed. He enjoys painting on canvases and his style of painting is very similar to the one at the museum. This confirmed that he was the mystery artist. The second this was revealed to the public, he was praised and celebrated by people worldwide. His recent paintings as well as his work as a graphic designer were in high demand, he received a job at the most popular and successful clothing brand and he was asked to design posters, invitations, social media posts and much more for the company. His transition from the state of unemployment to the most famous graphic designer in the world was spectacular. Due to his extensive income, he could now afford a decent standard of living and was rightfully recognised for his talent.

Everything was going well until someone stumbled upon the account details of this artist and realised that Ike Jason was not the mystery artist, the IP address of the mystery artist did not match with that of Shane Earnest. This piece of information was somehow leaked to the public, and they were furious(Journalists I tell you! Cannot hold themselves back from reporting). Afraid that they might lose their jobs the journalists were determined to find the original mystery artist and this time they planned on publishing all their findings to the public in order to avoid being called frauds.

They set out to find the original mystery artist and this time they would do everything in their power to make sure that this person was the original artist. When they finally traced the IP address it led them to the curator of a museum called Shane Ernest. Ike Jason was Shane Ernests nephew which explains how the IP addresses might have been switched. Shane Ernest was a middle aged man who was a curator of the museum where all the paintings of the mystery artist were displayed. Shane had graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and Design but could not make a stable income from it. In today's day and age, a career in art is not well respected, and it is very difficult to make adequate income from such jobs. This is why Shane had quit his job as an artist and got a job as the curator of a museum. Sky and Shane were good friends as she visited the museum frequently. The journalists did not want to make a mistake this time, so they rechecked the IP address several times and confirmed that Shane Ernest was the mystery artist.

After the journalists had published their findings with proof, everyone rejoiced as they had finally found the mystery artist. Shanes dream of becoming an artist finally came true as all of his drawings were uploaded online and his art was admired by people around the world, he even gave tutorials on painting online which inspired millions to pursue and appreciate art. Ike Jason's success wasn't affected by this at all because he possessed talent that deserved the spotlight. In the end everyone got what they wanted, journalists got their publicity, Ike's life was better than ever as had a successful job, a steady income and a good reputation and last but not the least Shane spent all his time doing something he loves the most, painting and teaching people to paint. Art was once again recognised as one of the most aesthetic and creative practices.

"So the story has a happy ending. But I do have one question, what do those numbers signed on his paintings signify?", asked Emily to which Claire replied,"If you consider them binary numbers then 01010011 01101011 would interpret the alphabets S and K, but why would he sign his paintings as SK?"