I agree that perl can be complex, its feature list is longer than C. Trying to be artistic in it, to me, means trying to make it so my code reads as much like pseudo-code as is reasonably possible. At its best the users are able to read the business logic portions and understand what is going on.
Of course good naming and abstractions are of key importance, and comments and inline documentation are important finishing touches, which so many programmers don't seem to have the time for. It doesn't hurt that Larry Wall, the designer of perl, was a linguist. Perl was meant to be flexible and expressive.
And everyone knows that there's nothing worse to read than obfuscated perl. Perhaps some think that is artistic in a different way, to make the shortest and most unreadable program possible. Not my thing, personally.
