My version would put experience instead of meaning. "Art does not portray events as they were, but as they were experienced".

Although many of the artists I know would not recognize that statement, because they do not work from identifiable events, but from presences.

Another version, closer to my own view, is that all art exploits bugs in the human system, basically within the brain (which includes the optic system). And the biggest bug is in thinking that experience 'makes sense' - that is it has meaning.

You can't be me, I'm taken