What Is Your Art’s Message?
As an individual in this crazy world of ours, you have so many choices of what you want to actively promote in life, and those choices are informed by your life experiences, values, how you were brought up, etc. Are you a positive person? Are you a cynical realist? Are you optimistic? Pessimistic? What do you love so much you want to want to share it with others?
If you are an artist, then that choice becomes paramount to the kind of work you do.
In fact, it’s everything!
Take Zdzislaw Beksinski, for example. His work was heavily influenced by the horrific experiences he had as a Polish person during the Second World War. The message he chose for his art was to convey that horror in such a way as connected people emotionally with the experience of the Holocaust. This was very important to him, and one can easily see why!
On the flip side, we have artists such as Lisa Congdon, whose work is not horrific in any way. In fact, quite the opposite. And yet, her brand of positivity is by no means insipid, and is laced with messages of kindness, diversity, respect for the environment, etc. She is transparent about her struggles an an LGBTQ artist, and this is why, although she focuses on a positive message, it’s positivity with an actionable purpose: to make the world a better place.
Both Congdon and Beksinski have an aim for their work, though, and regardless of the type of art they create, both their aims are to contribute something of ultimately positive value to the world.
But let’s talk about you.
As an artist, what are your unique values, experiences, and perspectives, and how does your work reflect that?
This might be a hard question to answer, but if you really take the time to look within, you will be rewarded with greater clarity!
For my part, I will confess, I didn’t do the kind of soul searching I recommend. But it just sort of came to me, and that’s when I realized that we all need to take a moment to think about our art and what we are trying to convey with it. I create art that is both chaotic and positive. It spreads a positive message, but with a sense of visual chaos characterized by bright colors, weird shapes, etc. And it’s because I realize we live in a very chaotic world, but have never let anything stop me from looking at the bright side.
Now it’s your turn. What is your sense of the world we live in? What is your relationship to humanity? How have your experiences affected the way you see the world?
Ask yourself these and other questions and you will be amazed to discover how your art can contribute and add meaning to the world.
What is your art’s message? Sound off in the comments!
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Thanks.
Talk soon!