As an artist, do you feel compelled to have your work relate to certain historical events? I mean at times, such as today, do you feel your work should blatantly reflect on the significance/sadness of 9-11. Or, should your work simply latently reflect on the tragedy? That is, you reflect personally and than create...not having any particular purpose but for conveying your particular emotions.
I have a lot of trouble with these questions (this question). I approach drawing as a personal diary keeping exercise at times, and at other times I feel that I am drawing/painting/etc. for the specific purpose of showing it to someone or for posterity. Is it truly a reflection of me that will be conveyed to others if I fail to create an image where someone can look at it and say---well, here, he was reflecting on the fiver year anniversary of 9-11? Or am I underestimating people?
I think the answer is as individual as the artist. I had thought that I *should* create something that refected on the 9-11 tragedy but only because it seemed like something artists are *supposed* to do. It is something that some artists do and others don't. The year after 9-11-2001 I saw so many blatant depictions of the event in art that it started to become annoying / cliche / boring... I think artists should create for themselves and if creating something in recognition of 9-11 (or ant other event) is somthing you want or need to do, then do it.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I have ever created a painting for a specific event - my approach has always been intuitive, and just to let the painting emerge and evolve. Looking at some of my paintings I can't remember what I was thinking about, but the paintings remind me of certain things - like 'ocean' to me is very calming even though the colors are very dark and others might see that as moody, depressed, or whatever. I would be very interested to hear other peoples ideas of what they think I was thinking about when I painting something...
I think creating something for an historical event or tragedy is a way for artists to deal with emotions and/or express feelings. and the more I think about, maybe it would be a good idea for artists to reflect on events and create according to their emotions...
I was thinking more about 9-11 and how all artists (people in general) deal with tragedy in different ways and I realize that I kind of avoid reading about 9-11 - but now you've got me thinking that I would like to do something that is my own reflection of what 9-11 means to me............
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