“Preferred public style may force us to copy” (Post 71)

Two days ago, I ventured into an art gallery where I saw the beautiful works of a few friends. Another friend walked in and we started to speak about the work of a mutual friend we saw on the walls. The works are truly beautiful but they are “predictably sweet”; our mutual friend had discovered what the public wanted. (I am truly happy and not jealous when I see an artist making money with his or her “toil in oil”, because it is often a tedious struggle to achieve financial success with one’s art as an artist.)

As artists we are often forced to make our works “sweet” because we know what the people want. Art dealers will often tell “new” or “young” artists that they cannot sell their works because there is not a recognizable style which the public will remember. In order to combat this “boring” reality of having to reproduce the same subject and the same style, some established artists often have more than one “line” and they would even use another name when they sign the other clandestine expressions which they sell in different locations.

Speaking as an artist – who is not a gallery favourite (yet) because I struggle a little to “add” the desired level of required sweetness perhaps – I find great delight in working with a variety of styles and media. The fact that I have been a full-time art teacher for over 22 years now, has not really helped me, because as I was teaching the students, I became more aware of different ways of artistic expression.

I included a large oil on canvas work that I made more than two decades ago and this work did not fit in at all. (Now I think it can be lovely as textile art!) No gallery was willing to sell the work and I was perhaps too “proud” to “sugar the pill” at that stage. Deep in my heart I am an abstract expressionist, but that is not the preferred style of the public. The upside is: it brought me joy, which was a huge consolation during that season of my life.

We sometimes struggle to find our way in life, because we want to be “different”, but being “different” does not really help us, so we decide to “copy” others to fit in and then life becomes “easier” it seems. (There is a tension there that each of us has to balance with heavenly wisdom.) However, may we not forget to be who we are, because we are all unique indeed.