While I was doing my 4 year degree at ANU, BA Visual Arts (painting) I found the discrepancy between the mastering of traditional technical skills and the constant requirement for innovation in art unsettling and rather depressing. I am a natural innovator, but the tendency towards minimalism just doesn't move me. Once it has been done I feel that it is no longer important.
The contemporary fashion industry gives an insight into the rest of the art scene. One can revamp "classic" styles and techniques and call them new, a novelty which is usually pretty transparent to those who have lived through a few generations of change, or engage in a desperate hunt for something that hasn't been done before. Now what artists consider novelty seems to be more in the hype (self promotion) or analysis (dissection) of art. Excuse me for finding that dull.
So, that is my very negative assessment of art fashions, but it doesn't take account of an artist's individual achievement and innovation. I believe that art "movements" are a thing of the past because we have had the "anything goes" mentality for so long now that there is nothing particularly novel about anyone's art. The death of "shock value" art movements does not discount the journeys of individual artists.
In this privileged "first world" society where we are bombarded with rich food, imported culture and the cheap products of emerging nations, there is even more need for each of us to establish interests and activities through which we express our identities and developing skills. A lot of people in our society, although wealthy and privileged in the eyes of other nations are actually poor in culture and purpose, in dislocated communities with dead end jobs.
I live on a farm with a lot of animals to look after. Although I often moan about the backbreaking work of my family's chosen lifestyle, at least it has meaning and purpose and I don't have to go to a gym to keep fit. There is not a lot of spare time to engage in making art, but it gives me a source and inspiration for my art. I enjoy painting and crafting, but in order to connect with the rest of the world I am determined to develop my means of expression using digital art.
As the 20th century came to an end I looked back on the achievements of its artists. It was not the modernist art movements in painting, sculpture, literature or music which I felt would really be looked on as that century's most significant art legacy, but the amazing individual and collaborative achievements in the field of "moving" images. I looked back on the milestones of the century in which my grandparents, my parents and my own generation had spent most of their productive lives and film was the art form which I felt had had the most influence on society.
Film, in particular animation, was the great "constructive" art effort of the Twentieth Century. Expressionism, surrealism, cubism, modernism and every other ism of the century had a great effect on "art" as it was known, but I feel that it was as much a de-constructive effect as a constructive one. All the way along the road towards the dead end of ephemeral art, artists in the last century changed the way they have designed their works and thought about their art.
In building, design, fashion, music, literature and philosophy the changes over the century were immense, but I believe that what both fed on these changes and spread them to the masses were the constructions of the film industry... the technology of dreams. When story telling, sound and moving image capture came together for the first time it was a true shattering of conventions. It both incited and promoted the changes in traditional art forms.
Painting in particular was forced to change. It had been a highly skilled trade used for centuries to capture a story, a scene, a time, a lifestyle, a hero, a loved one or a religious revelation, then its uses were changed to that of the expression of an individual artist. That was a world shattering change for artists using traditional media, but not so much for the general populace who were much more blown away by the experience of watching Disney's "Steamboat Willie" or Chaplin's "Modern Times." Animation and film led by Hollywood has become such a part of all our lives, is it any wonder that the cultural imperialism of the USA was so successful?
I have been researching examples of interesting animation, particularly those which combine techniques more usually used in still paintings. That is the area of interest which I am investigating this semester, both by looking at other people's animations and by experimenting with what I can achieve by using my newly purchased Anime Studio application. This is not a radically new step in the type of art I make, but more an adaptation of my still artworks. (To look at my still artworks go to this link at my website - http://mobilemagicbook.net/Art_Gallery.html)
Here is a beautiful hybrid traditional animation using oil painting on glass recorded digitally. Aleksandr Petrov won an Oscar in 2002 for this cartoon adaptation of Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea". Rather than using brushes, he uses his fingers to organise the paint, he says that he likes using this technique because it is new and exciting but "organic simple and effective." He defines himself as an artist rather than an animator and describes the drawback of his technique as the amount of time it takes to do, which gets the actual creation out of synch with the "creative spark."
Aleksandr Petrov takes about three and a half years to complete 30 minutes of film. This is not a technique I am about to copy even though I empathise with his motivation for using it. I will see what I can make using Anime Studio.
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