Working 100% visually, you're can't tell a story in one image. You need words. Well, you probably can if you're telling a Bible story or something else that's well worn. You can tell simple stories and familiar stories.
That image I linked to has a story, but I can't convey that story using only my painting. When you paint or sculpt or whatever you do to make an image, you have to release your story to the viewer and accept that a lot is going to be lost between the artist, the painting and the viewer. And that's OK.
The story: there was a schizophrenic (I guess?) woman who lived above me and my brother. For whatever reason known only to her she overflowed her bathtub regularly to the point that my brother had a big leak in his ceiling. And to the point that the floor in the utility room underneath our hot water heaters collapsed because it kept getting wet with bathtub water. She also threw a fuckload of her possessions out into the apartment's common area and locked herself out on a 20 degree F night. I called the police and the property managers that night because her nose was blue when I went to ask if she was all right. That's the impetus, a year or so of living next to a crazy old lady and putting up with a leak and an exploratory hole in the ceiling that's still there
Typing it all out makes it seem less important and more trivial. Maybe because I'm proud of my painting since I usually make trivial shit for money, maybe because I'm probably some kinda bipolar and can empathize, but my little painting doesn't have the detail and insight of a novel. And it doesn't need that even if I wish it did. The fact is I lose absolute control when someone looks at something I made without me there to explain it in painful detail and there's nothing wrong with that. I think my explanation is actually detrimental to whatever anyone who looks at it can independently come up with, and that's why I usually try to say as little as possible about anything I make that seems to have a story behind it. But #showandtell, so I told.
I don't think this is explicitly true - I think if you want to make sure that everyone is getting your story from your art, the story you want told, then you need words. Once you release art out into the world, it is out of your hands. What it means, what it signifies and represents are all up to the interpretation of the receiver. That's true of any kind of art: poetry, prose, music, visual art. In a sense, as an artist, one has to be a control freak, focusing on every minuscule detail,, but also be able to give all control away once a piece is presented to the world.Working 100% visually, you're can't tell a story in one image.
You can do it and I said how. You can take a picture that tells a story more powerful than a news article like the image of the Vietnamese girl crying on the road. But most of my point comes from going to art school, hearing people over explain things instead of letting them stand on their own. Whatever I have in my head when I make something is totally irrelevant and might even detract as the details may be less interesting than the uncertainty or someone's imagination. There's a whole field that tries to tease out artistic intentions and it's called art history. And it's pretty useless. For the most part images can't tell a story on their own without some context so the act of making visual art is entirely release and any pointy headed thoughts put into it are as valuable as what a stranger experiences. I really don't know what I'm saying at this point. I'm on my phone, watching a movie and about to step out to the gas station.
"There's a whole field that tries to tease out artistic intentions and it's called art history. And it's pretty useless." haha, I like this. For someone trying to create something very personal and emotive then I guess it becomes "useless" to look at history in art because it doesn't relate to what you are doing. I would however say that it's very important to look at how people have gone about expressing very personal experiences in history. They may not be about a schizophrenic woman that overflows a bath tub but they could give you a glimpse into how other people express intimate experiences.
Artists and art historians have a good natured beef. Some sculptors look down on painters in a half serious half joking way. Many artists look down on photography. It's just shop talk when we congregate to talk smack about other fields. My first sculpture professor had a joke, "Sculptors deal with art in three dimensions, painters in two dimensions. And art historians deal with art in one dimension."
An awesome piece. It's great to see the artist's story behind a piece of art that could mean so many things to so many people.
It's a really interesting thing when you think about it, "How can I produce something visual that says exactly what I want it to?" and I tend to hold the same views as you. I think the really important part that you hit upon was that it's okay that you can't. If you ask a slightly different question "How can I produce something visual that says, to me, exactly what I want it to?" then that become something much more doable.
Very intersting. Invokes emotion in me. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing. Have a badge, I dig your work. It's a powerful image and the framing in the painting does a great job of adding to the sense of hiding that the hand over the face already establishes. I would say that I'm not a big fan of the actual frame but the painting is awesome. Great work tacocat!