What is your "artist's Statement"
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I am working on an assignment for a class that I am taking and I have been asked to write an "artist's statment".
That got me thinking. There are a number of really talented artists here, many of whom do art work ( or would like to find the time to do so) besides doing sketchup and illustrations.I was curious what would be "your" artists statement? What sort of work do you like to do? What are you trying to say or achieve? What media? Who are your favourite artists? Which artists were your greatest influences?
I can't wait to see your answers.
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Interesting, I never thought about it but when I read your post...or at least my eldest son did (over my shoulder) he instantly said that mine is "My best work is my next work". Seems that I do have one as I alwayssay that when asked what my best render is.
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'I draw things' ..... that simple really...
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This is mine (though I nicked it from Picasso): "I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it."
Talent is nice, but it is wasted without the eagerness to learn new things, and the discipline (and arrogance) it takes to actually do so.
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Actually, sketchup, render software, and color pencils are tools, I use to create Architecture when I have the chance to do so. Most of the time I am happy with a nice, well lite, unfurnished space. Often I settle for a entry, doorway, or even a mailbox
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As an aside from the OP, very nice majid. Tremendous detail
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I was graphic designer. I don't want it any more as I wasted half of my life and health trying to survive making things with all of my honesty for a world without honesty. Now I work for my own satisfying in graphism, painting and drawing.
Art is essentially a language. I can communicate with another artist because I understand his language. For the same reason you can find in language the slang and you will find crude art from vulgar people with no taste at all.
Art is an armament, like music for humans, we employ both to threaten other groups. It can hurt, can join, can identify itself with religion, politics, war, social movements.
Art is money. An investment for ignorants and anonymous corporations in pictures of great masters who died in absolutely misery.
Art is loneliness and silent effort of the creator, much more harder than people think.
Art is vanity, a social instrument. It is considered a cultural demonstration and all we want to be cults for the rest and belong to a cultural group.
Let's see an example of this vanity and ignorance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj4MVtoNWZc
(This is in spanish but for you to understand this is an experiment of a TV show that introduces a child made picture into the most important modern art exhibition of Spain to study the public opinions. Two girls say it's fine... a young man who says that there is a lot of complexity and reflection in the picture... two mature women say 15.000 € is not to much considering were is it.. a man who goes further and talk about the evident experience of the creator and a great sexual charge in the picture which belongs to a mature man without any doubt, the price is OK for him too. (I like this opinion specially because this man reflects the vision of himself as the artist).
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Wow, this is great. Surely there must be more of you. That last "You Tube" one is a mind blower. How sad. How true.
I should share mine. I was asked to write it as though it were written by a magazine at the "pinnacle" of my career and I was told to "have fun with it". However, I have changed it from the "magazine" third person to be my personal artist's statement. What the heck I should have one hanging around, just in case.******************
Susan Sorger, Artist Statement:
Painting in either watercolours or oils, I like to depict humorous visual narratives as "freeze frames" capturing fleeting moments where our foibles and peccadilloes are laid bare. I hope to invite the viewer to recognize himself in scenarios where the banal is contrasted with the sublime. This is further punctuated by the juxtaposition of a classical painting style with a light-hearted subject matter. My aim is to create work that is neither “edgy” nor "sentimental" and can perhaps best be described as “wry” with a universal appeal . I once saw a comedienne who did a 20 minute monologue about her toothbrush. It was side-splitting funny. Her subject matter was the stuff of every day life and it was neither provocative, profane or profound but it sure packed a punch as it was just about being "human". I aspire to achieve the same.
Currently, my favourite artists are: James Gurney, Joe Francis Dowden, and Debra Tate-Sears. I confess to being influenced most strongly by the work of Disney Studios’ “Nine Old Men” animation artists, by Norman Rockwell and by the great John Singer-Sargent -
With the major influence of my Uncle, Doug Stephens who was a cowboy artist, primarily painting and sculpture, I decided to pursue studies at the Alberta College of Art, Majoring in Printmaking, and minoring in ceramics.
Coming from a lower income family, I put my self through college by cabinetmaking, which was a skill handed down to me by my Father, and fostered a lifelong love of wood, and as a musician, which was something I had always done.
After College I partnered with a close friend to start a small glass shop, which was his background,with my responsibility in the company to develop the art glass division. The company prospered and we were able to add a glassblowing studio to complement our stained glass, acid etching, and fused and slumped glass work.
Pursuing a lifelong dream of living in the mountains my wife and I moved to a small remote town, where, once again my woodworking skills allowed me to start a design/build company, which led naturally to development of computer graphic, and Cad skills. Graced with projects that challenged me creatively,and allowed me to take skills in drawing, woodworking and glasswork beyond the conventional.
I continued to thrive creatively outside the commercial aspect of my life by learning how to build acoustic guitars, and to develop three dimensional paintings, which I accomplish by carving scenes in wood, and using these as a 3d canvas (hence my avatar). I find this combination very naive, and refreshing, requiring me to exercise the patients demanded by woodcarving, while giving the freedom that oil and acrylic painting allows.
This along with development of my rendering skills, which are still in their infancy, but thanks to the people of this community, are coming along quite well, are my current chosen mediums.I have been trying to look up some of the influences others have posted, so I though I would post an image of one of mine.
The image is a woodblock print done in the Japanese style of multiple blocks, by Walter J. Phillips. More of his work is at http://www.sharecom.ca/phillips/contents.html (Oh and his depiction of water is amazing)
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I love SU, and sometimes painting, (usually watercolor, and completely far from architecture
), and here is one of them:
I usually love dream , not reallity. this is the way i'm migrating to. my master is Mahmood Farshcian :
http://www.farshchianart.com/
that opens a majic world door to me.
art in my sight is a way to creat or maintain the human visions, and it is a song of human lonelyness. -
I think my statement would be "my work speaks for itself."
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Try selling that to a gallery owner. Won't work.
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Wow, I've not thought about being an artist for years, but I remembered I did have a statement of sorts, and for what it's worth this is what I wrote some some 7 years ago, it still holds good for that part of my endeavours.
Now I might have to think of one to suit my present 'artistic' pursuits, to which I have to add SU.Barry Mills is a designer/maker of functional and aesthetic wooden objects and structures.
Anything from tiny handcarved bowls to sculpted playgrounds, from ceremonial chairs to tillers for ocean going yachts.
Originally trained as a graphic designer in the United Kingdom, he has been producing one-off and limited production runs for corporate and private clients for some 30 years.
His early influences at art college were Art Nouveau, William Morris and Roger Dean (best known for his 'Yes" album covers). Later the design philosophies of Krenov and Prof. David Pye helped him to form an aesthetic which involves respect for the material and fitness of purpose; a sort of 'form follows function follows form' or ' the shortest path between A and B ain't necessarily a straight line'.
During the last few years Barry has become more involved through his love of sailing with boats and boatbuilding having built several small craft and undertaken numerous yacht fitouts and repairs.
" Boatwork seems to me to be almost the ultimate expression of design and skill. Every component on a boat has to be totally functional, it has to have unambiguous structural integrity and of course it has to look good. The hard bit about this is that the interface between these qualities has to be seamless, if it isn't, it'll be obvious...even before it comes off in your hand in Bass Straight."Baz.
Ps: I notice that I wrote this in the 'third person', (apart from the quote). I must have thought it sounded less pretentious, Ha!
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*Vincent to Theo.
"You don't know how paralysing that is, that stare of a blank canvas, which says to the painter: you can't do a thing." ... "Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of 'you can't' once and for all."
- letter to brother Theo, October 1884*
Maybe not much help Susan, but again maybe
Mike
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@mike lucey said:
[i]Vincent to Theo.
"Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvasThis is exactly the line that separates the artist from the genius. When I see the blank canvas and start to remember what some genius did apparently easily... I think I'm nobody, hahahaha
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