ART BLOG<\/p>\n
(To publish or not? Not sure. How honest can I be?)<\/p>\n
Sunday 1 March 2015
\nLast night I met a Danish painter, in the UK for her first London solo exhibition. She got me thinking about a few things. Which is always a good thing. Thinking.<\/p>\n
First, she seemed slightly ashamed of being a painter. She said being a painter was \u201cboring\u201d. Now, I\u2019m not one to argue with strangers, or friends of acquaintances as this woman was. But I had to disagree. I don\u2019t find it \u2018boring\u2019 at all being a painter. She clarified that she herself is not bored with being a painter, but that other people roll their eyes and yawn when she tells them of her medium of choice. Again I disagreed. She explained that it was other artists in the Art World who find her choice of materials boring. People who aren\u2019t in the art world are, of course, still impressed by painting. I guess I hang around mostly non-art world people\u00a0then. I don\u2019t think I could take being frowned at because of my passion.<\/p>\n
The reason that this conversation was so significant was that I\u2019ve been in a bit of a lull the last few months. I finished my latest Czech commissions at the end of last year. The Tarot exhibition before Christmas was successful. I had my painting in SELFRIDGES! I\u2019m working on an exciting new portrait for a rapidly rising, very talented fabric artist who is going to make me the most fabulous frock coat ever. And yet\u2026 because I don\u2019t have any major commissions or shows coming up, I feel like I\u2019m not going anywhere.<\/p>\n
I know that is completely ridiculous. Being an artist, or any kind of freelance worker, one has periods of being busy and periods of being less busy. There is no reason to panic or get low about\u2026 about my lack of ability to push and promote myself.<\/p>\n
Can I admit that? Even the Danish painter was on my page there. The younger artists are so skilled in marketing, it doesn\u2019t matter if their art is shit. They succeed on pure self-grandiousity.<\/p>\n
So, from feeling down about my lack of prospects (and dwindling financial resources), I\u2019ve taken another look at what\u2019s going on. The \u2018Art World\u2019? Still frowning at painters? So much so that even while basking in the aftermath of an international solo show, this painter is looking down on herself for her choice of medium?<\/p>\n
\u201cA painting will only ever be a painting,\u201d she says. Um\u2026 so what? I say. Why should alleged \u201cnew\u201d conceptual art completely take the place of an authentic means of self expression that has been around for centuries?<\/p>\n
This painter also thought Hirst\u2019s Shark (at the time it was \u2018made\u2019) was \u201cnew\u201d. I tried to argue that one but realised we would have to agree to disagree. I know I\u2019ve been questioning my pent up anger, and I have never actually punched anyone in the face, but this wasn\u2019t the time to start. And not in a stuffy white walled gallery (we were at private view of some rather excellent analogue black and while photography). Anyway she didn\u2019t anger me at all, just made me think.<\/p>\n
It brought home what is, in my Stuckist opinion, still wrong with the art world. That painters are made to feel inferior, after the self-proclaimed \u2018innovators.\u2019<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t hate all conceptual art. But it has to have content. It has to say something. The way we got on to Hirst was that I was raving about the Kiefer show at the Royal Academy. Now there is someone who pushes \u2018paint\u2019 beyond its limits. I also talked about the TV documentary and how Kiefer must have so much money to be able to create the huge work he does. And then the Danish painter brought up Hirst, who has also made shitpiles of cash. And I couldn\u2019t stand to have that snake-oil salesman in the same conversation as one of the few living masters in the world.<\/p>\n
I berate myself for not having the marketing skills and confidence to try to get into proper galleries. And yet, do I want to be part of the \u201cart world\u201d?<\/p>\n
As a final stab at my disgust with art, it turned out that this poor painter was exhausted from commuting back and forth between London and Hastings during her short stay in the UK, and she was also very hungry. Her host, however, was re-filling his wine glass and still chatting to people, which I found quite rude. Booze taking priority? Another thing that disgusts me about some artists. I\u2019d been introduced to the Danish painter as her host said they were about to go round someone\u2019s house for dinner. The painter had more commuting to do, and a flight back to Denmark coming up. A bit of consideration for her needs would have been nice. She and I were talking for the good part of an hour, before I said goodbye to her host, and couldn\u2019t help pointing out that the painter was starving. The host was well on his way to wine overload, and just grinned and nodded.<\/p>\n
Not sure if I can publish this blog as I don\u2019t want to cut off my nose to spite my face\u2026 but I don\u2019t know about sucking up to an art world that gets pissed and frowns on painters.<\/p>\n
So maybe a simple part time admin job really is the way forward. I can\u2019t see myself vainly trying to push into that world. Like Angela Edwards, I feel that I don\u2019t fit in anywhere. The content of my work is fairly \u2018low brow\u2019 and yet the method, oil painting, is not very low bro, nor affordable for collectors of that genre. I appeal to the common people, cleaners and taxi drivers and good, honest working-class folk\u2026 who have no money to buy art.<\/p>\n
Rather than subject myself to further humiliation in the face of such adversary \u2013 snobbery and drunkenness \u2013 perhaps I should look elsewhere to earn a living, and content myself to paint as merely an outlet of expression, with no pressure to \u2018succeed\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ART BLOG (To publish or not? Not sure. How honest can I be?) Sunday 1 March 2015 Last night I met a Danish painter, in the UK for her first London solo exhibition. She got me thinking about a few things. Which is always a good thing. Thinking. First, she seemed slightly ashamed of being … Continue reading Musings on a conversation at a private view<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-blogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellaguruart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellaguruart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellaguruart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellaguruart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellaguruart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=969"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ellaguruart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":970,"href":"https:\/\/ellaguruart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969\/revisions\/970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellaguruart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellaguruart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellaguruart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}