What is the value of art?
Kristina’s mother is originally from Germany and her father emigrated from Iran. We played dress-up together when we were eleven and twelve, and we had a few classes together in high school. When she walked into my studio to do the interview for this painting, I had not seen her in ten years.
For the purposes of Apple Pie, Kristina has been combined with Rosie, though with a slight alteration.
Raha The Riveter is proof that Rosie isn’t the only one doing the riveting anymore.
A first wash of color.
I’ve never been much of a fan of painting fabric, so I was not looking forward to painting the hijab.
That said, my dislike of clothing actually reached its apex a few years ago. For a while there, I had this fantasy that I could get all my subjects to sit for me in the buff. It wasn’t that I wanted to paint them as full nudes. I was only interested in being able to paint their shoulders without the suggestion of clothing.
I grew out of my strong dislike of fabric when I realized that a person’s choice of clothing for their sitting says a lot about them. And it’s not information I should leave out of a portrait.
Also, there is a whole language to the way a person’s collar intersects with the skin of their neck. I know that sounds strange and I’m not entirely sure how to explain it, except in examples. Compare Frances’ collar-neck area with Curt’s. Their expressions are different, as are their sexes and ages, but there’s something in the way their clothing hides and reveals their bodies that speaks to the subtler differences between the two of them.
I started to think of the hijab in these terms. Though I missed the opportunities for expression that a person’s neck and shoulders allow, I realized that the hijab allowed—and even encouraged!—me to focus the painting more on the gesture.
Raha The Riveter
2008
acrylic on canvas
41 x 38 inches
(detail below)
I’m fairly certain that I’ve discovered the one, the only, the root value of art. It’s in a work’s ability to cause a conversation and be a catalyst for change.
I have asked plenty of people, lots of art-types, what they think the value of art is. While they all have different ways of phrasing their responses, if you boil the various definitions all down, it comes back to an ability to incite revolution—big or small, global and personal.
And the value of visual art specifically is in its immediate impact. No other form has that. With words, a person has to read a whole sentence or paragraph or book before she-he can be affected by the whole thing. It’s a cumulative effect. With images, it’s the reverse. First, a person sees the whole, and then, hopefully, the layers of meaning that go into it.
It’s this aspect of visual art that I mean to more fully understand and employ in Apple Pie.
(5) Comments: What is the value of art?
That said, the longer that I look at your work the more I like it, particularly the expressiveness of the lines and shapes.
Your style has a character of it’s own,
and I find that quite valuable.
i am riveted by the riveter. brilliant.
i therefore give it 10 value stars out of 10.
i really enjoy this piece.
I never contribute to blogs, but I feel compelled to respond to the comment posted by Homager X. Many well-respected pieces of art in many genres have commented on existing art to make a point or develop an idea—to continue the conversation, which is one part of the value that Gwenn defines in art (read artist statement above). The social commentary is so rich because the images being used are so iconic and loaded with meaning in America. I think it’s a brilliant way to accomplish the goal of this series. Very well done, Gwenn!
Homager X said...
I think the greatest value of art is the inspiring of the viewer by making something that exists only in the imagination visible.
--- -- - --- - ---- - - --- ----- -- -Hard to do that though when you’re painting from photographs and blatantly ripping off other paintings.