Artistic Themes Post

The four themes that I would most like to focus on on in my future works are Personal Themes, Narrative, Social Commentary, and Metaphor. These themes I either feel like I am doing but can improve on or I should incorporate more into my art in the future.

Personal themes:

Personal themes are like a visual diary of the artists feelings. I think that I have certainly used personal themes in my artworks in the past. This theme lets you draw inspiration from your personal experiences and can connect you further to your artwork, making it more meaningful. In the past, I have used personal themes to make different self portraits and also art about depression, anxiety and other things that impact me. One thing I made this year that has personal themes is my Humor and Irony piece where I was inspired by my grandpa wrapping presents in the comics. This may not mean much to other people, but it means a lot to me, and even if not everyone can relate, everyone can understand why I would make art inspired by my grandpa and can think about their own grandparents. In my art history class, I am studying an artist named Roxanne Swentzell. She creates statues that are influenced by her personal experiences which is why she is able to put so much emotion in in her art. I was attracted to her piece in the Fred Jones Museum so much because I could relate to its pose and facial expression, basically relating to her own personal experiences. I think I want to focus on this theme in order to make art that is even more personal and meaningful to me, and hopefully others are able to relate to it as well.

Frida Khalo

Narrative:

Narrative themes show a story or depiction of actual or fictitious events using visual language. I have personally dappled using narrative themes before, but I think my art could benefit from me learning more about and experimenting more with this theme. In the past, I have creates characters with backstories, the beginnings of comic series, and single panel artworks that have a story within them. I think storytelling is an important thing to learn, for any artist. The artwork that I made this year that best showcases a narrative theme is my panorama piece. In the artwork, you are able to see the story unfold as your eyes travel down the page. First you see someone feeding a fish, then you see an orange cat watching the fish. Since the art is titled "dinner time" which leads the reader to analyze the drawing and wonder why it is titled that. For my future artworks, I would like to focus more on this theme because I am especially interested in storytelling. I think single pieces that show a whole story or a single scene can be incredibly interesting and a great way to connect to viewers of your piece. I think that a lot of my pieces require an explanation to fully understand, but with narrative elements, one is able to at least understand parts of the story that are visually present. My goal for my future artwork, not particularly in this class but in a more broad context, is to work on turning some stories I have into comics. I love reading comics and I think that they are a great way of storytelling.

Social Commentary:

Social Commentaries are artworks representing issues dealing with contemporary social and/or political ideals usually taking a critical stance or raising awareness. I most certainly have made art in the past dealing with social commentaries, most notably my Junior year AP art concentration. My entire concentration was over the empowerment of women, and I made art dealing with some of the criticism and problems that they face being a women. This ranged from physical attributes to standards placed on them. Some of my pieces from this concentration even won awards and have been displayed in shows. All this to say, I have made social commentary artworks before and do not plan to stop. The artwork that I made this year that best showcases this theme is my Humor and Irony comic strip. In that piece I created a few different comic strips, each commenting on a different problem in our society. This included the objectification of women, blindness of Americans, depression, and more. This social commentary was a bit easier to understand without an explanation because it was in comic form and you could read instead of merely interpret. As someone with strong opinions and an ability and want to create art, I do not see myself stopping putting social commentary in my artworks. Should every single one of my pieces be like this? No. But I do think that it is a great way to get my opinions out there and help get information on important issues into the spotlight.

Metaphor:

The most basic definition of a metaphor is a comparison between two things. Metaphors in art are commonly used in advertising, for example you can compare the blanket that you are selling to a warm hug in order to get more people to want to buy it. I do not plan to go into marketing, but there are plenty of different ways to use metaphor in artwork. I think that another way to look at this theme is through the lends of symbolism. In the past, I have added symbolism in Senior year AP art concentration artworks to further expand the meanings behind the pieces. I added in secret codes and cryptic symbols to represent the illuminati and other organizations. I do not think that any of my pieces I made this year perfectly embody the theme of metaphors, but that is because I did not specifically put them there. One could look at my Space Interrupted piece and see a metaphor for a broken and twisted home. Did I intend for that? No, but I do not discourage trying to find alternative meaning in my pieces. I think that metaphors could greatly help improve my art because it takes them one step deeper than surface level art. Sure it might be a (fill in the blank) but it really means (fill in the blank). The possibilities are endless.

Vladimir Kush