I think that the second option is better for me. The first step for me was to choose a contemporary artist that will clearly display the benefits and drawbacks of contemporary art. In order to do this I made a bit of a list/criteria that I think contemporary artist would face in both the benefits and drawback aspects. After choosing an artist, I will be able to dive deeper into the benefits and drawbacks they face with there art, but for now, here is a bit of a general criteria:
Benefits
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Drawbacks
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Technology (websites, get paintings viewed)
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Technology(easier to criticise work)
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Easy access to materials
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Compared to great artist
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Wide variety of art styles
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May not be appreciated
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After looking for contemporary artists that fulfilled some of this criteria, I came up with two artists named Kristine Moran. Moran is a contemporary artists who has been listed on a website of 60 top painters in Canada, she must have worked pretty hard to be recognized like that. The website actually has a lot of good contemporary painters on it if anyone would like to check it out. The website link is http://www.60painters.com/artists.php. I looked through a few artists before choosing this women, but her artwork really stood out to me as unique, innovative art. I then searched her and found that she also both has a webpage, which fit into my criteria. I now must dig a little deeper to find the benefits and drawbacks Moran. .
Kristine Moran:
Moran was originally from Montreal. Her work has been shown in exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art; Monica DeCardenas, Milan; Anna Kustera Gallery, NYC; Kinkead Contemporary in LA, and Clark + Faria in Toronto. Moran has also held solo shows, holding her second one this past spring, at the Nicelle Beauchene Gallery in New York City. Moran's work is greatly talked about in many areas and has even been reviewed in many magazines and newspapers, as well as websites such as Artforum.com and Artslant.com,
This is exactly what I was saying was a benefit and drawback of contemporary art, it makes it so easy for art criticizers to state there opinion and spread it around to everyone. This could make or destroy an artists career based on one opinion.
Lets look a little deeper into what review Moran got from Artslant.com:
"Kristine Moran’s work looks good on websites. It looks good in magazines and on gallery flyers. But oh, my god, it looks great in person. Maybe that’s why everyone and everyone’s mother turned out to see it at the opening of Between Life and Death at Daniel Faria last Friday. We were all there, local high rollers and sloppy art fans, clumped about on the gallery’s expansive floor space, trying and failing to talk to each other about something other than the pictures... But no matter — Moran’s canvasses sing on the white walls. The place looks less barren than bursting, even on a cold October night."
From this review, it seems that Moran has benefited from technology with being a contemporary artist. More people can recognize her work, and have easy access to it, and with reviews like this one, the reader wants to go see her artwork in person.
Moran does a variety of artwork including mostly figures, and symbols. Some of Morans more popular art pieces (found on http://www.kristinemoran.com/) include:
Figures
Figures
Symbol
'Lillie's in Midnight'
I like her style of art. Especially the figure paintings. I like that you can make out what the figures should be based on line and color. But also that there are no outlines, and it allows the mind to fill in the blanks that the painting is missing. Her artwork looks very elegant and the lines are smooth. The figure paintings make the viewers eyes believe that the painting is moving.
Kristine Moran talks about the struggles of doing her art with 'Art-Rated':
'The process can at some times be blissfully straightforward; an idea, a very quick sketch, loose com positional drawing on canvas and paint, and it somehow hits the mark at the first go. Other times, it’s a clumsy process of back and forth between sketch and painting. The sketch is re-drawn a few times as the painting evolves. The paint is applied and wiped down several times over.As the under-painting is done fairly thinly, I can work out subject matter, composition and ideas as I’m going along. I view it as a sort of reverse excavation. As I’m painting, shapes, figures and creatures will emerge. It’s up to me to cull them into existence, allowing the story to unfold naturally.I usually work on several paintings at once, especially while the subject matter is still emerging. I’ll work on one painting until it’s about three-quarters done and then leave it. I’ll do this for several paintings in a series. Then I can step back and see an overall theme developing, at which point, if one painting needs to change direction to tie in with the others, it’s still possible to do so.'
It is reassuring to hear a recognized artist hear about there struggles and drawbacks, and learn how the push through it. It is nice to know that even great artists don't get it perfect the first time, that time must be spent on paintings to reach a level artists are happy with, and that everyone has there own way of doing art, and we all just need to find our own.
I also learned from reading the interview with Moran that sometimes your struggles are what can make the final art piece so great.
'Insomnia had a significant impact on my last body of work. I’d been sleepwalking and having nightly hallucinations. I was fighting it during the day and stressing about getting some painting done, when I finally realized that I could let my experience dictate the direction of the work. While doing this I recalled the author Robert Louis Stevenson, author of the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, who seemed appropriate to my situation at the time–he often spoke of his vivid dreams dictating the course of his stories. At the same time, I fortuitously stumbled upon the writing of scientist Paul Broks, who said, “While sleeping the brain looses its grip on the self, the self tumbles into a thousand parts.” This became the underpinning for the 2011 exhibition titled Protean Slip at the Nicelle Beauchene Gallery in NYC. The painted figures in that series transform into shadowy, fragmented shapes, floating against a nocturnal landscape.'
This is a piece from her series:
'Somnambule' found on http://art-rated.com/?p=544
I like that the struggle she faced with this painting is what makes it so great. It looks to me like someone is stuck in cloud, or a daydream maybe, that is starting to self destruct. It looks like the person is trying to escape the cloud by planting there feet firmly on the ground, but they cant get out because there feel are tied in with string. They are trapped and they can not do anything to get out.
Morans style of art is very accepted in this culture, because everyone is looking for something that is a little different from the ordinary, but not totally out there. Moran chooses colors that compliment each other, and stroke lines that compliment the painting.
Another benefit of being a contemporary artist, is that there are a lot of art styles already. Moran can admire a lot of painting, and 'steal' concepts from them to make her own. And she has admitted to doing this, she will incorporate colors or patterns of other artists work and make it her own.
A drawback of doing art in this day and age is that so many ideas and painting styles are already almost designated to a persons name. A lot of time you will hear people say that a certain piece, looks like DaVinci, or Piccasso. I think that Moran did a very good job at making her paintings stand out.
Moran works with the benefits of being a contemporary artist, and learns to deal with the drawbacks. She moved from Toronto to New York to pursue her career, and will have another exhibition in October.
After doing some research on the benefits and drawbacks of contemporary art. I think that the benefits defiantly out weigh the drawbacks, As long as the artist doesn't let the drawbacks destroy them.
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