Lets take a look at Mr. Witkin again after my little tease. The image and my comment got quite a reaction -- as I intended. Witkin is one of my favorite contemporary painters. He is, however, full of that overblown angst I tend to frown upon. This was part of what I said in the post. . . . overblown angst I tend to frown upon. This one in particular got to people. They all ignored the first part of the statement where I called him out as one of my favorites. Tend to is the operative phrase here. Mr. Witkin is overblown, melodramatic, and you could add a thesaurus full of other adjective to him--and it all works for what hes trying to do. Keep in mind the source when I post on this page. You could easily attach those adjective to my work. My stuff is really just big, superhero, comic book panels in a very real sense. Intention is everything in Art. Secondly comes the alchemy. Are you taking two or more things that are out in the culture and putting them together in a way no one else has (or very few have)? This oil and water approach, Im convinced is the most efficient way to be creative. Find things that are meaningful/interesting to you and mash em up. Keep in mind as you do it, youll be working for a niche market. Many, probably most, wont like it. So, Mr. Witkin is a unique voice, partly because hes taken Hollywood melodrama (lets say) in culturally challenging direction. After all tragedy is, over-the-top, all-encompassing, in-your-face, when it happens to you. Witkin is inviting us to step into the tragedy and experience it, rather than to simple sit in our red velvet seats and watch it. By making it so invasive and so public, we are forced to privatize it--we are pitched inside. One of Arts functions is to give the audience permission to FEEL. So, much of our training in life is about suppression, and for the most part rightly so. But, that suppression also does a certain amount, sometimes a great deal, of damage. Art makes it safe to feel again, and to do it communally. A powerful thing. Steve Huston
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 16:45:23 +0000
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