Article written by Caitlyn Saliba.
I know, I know, you’re probably thinking ‘how on earth does she expect to answer that?!’ The simple answer? I don’t. I don’t want to try to explain why each and every person creates something from nothing. All forms of art, such as photography, painting, drawing, sculpture, street art and the list goes on and on and on.
What I do aim to do in this article, is express my own experiences within creating art, with what little experience I do have. I unfortunately haven’t had a lot of experience with creating visual art, I am more interested in creating art with language, but, that being said, I did create some art back in high school, and I loved it. I haven’t had the time since starting university, but I do remember my experiences and how I felt when creating my art.
Personally, my chosen media of visual art was painting. Obviously, with my lack of artistic skills, I was that one kid in class who had to trace their subject before heading into the painting stage of the project. While this is definitely not my most loved stage of the painting process, it definitely added to the process. My absolute favourite part of the process is the first layer of paint. While being still so far away from the finished project, it feels amazing to get that first bit of paint on the canvas and start a project.
But, I’m not here to talk about the process of painting, I’m here to talk about WHY I painted. How I felt when I painted. It’s something different for everyone, so my experience is not going to be compatible for everyone. For me, painting was a way to forget the troubles of high school life and work.
Escapism is a word often associated with arts of all kinds. For me, the thought of being lost in the painting, with music playing in the background, was perfection. Escapism is defined as the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment of entertainment or engaging in fantasy. Personally, this definitely applied to me. The majority of my paintings were fantastical, in fact, I think all of them were.
Fantasy in paintings is common, but possibly less common then landscape or realistic paintings and portraits. But some of even the most real paintings were of people and places where the artist is not, meaning that it is still a form of escapism, to hope that you are somewhere or with someone you aren’t. Now once again, this is only my personal experience.
Other artists have other reasons, in fact, one artist said, that they created art because in lie they experienced so much fragmentation of thought and feeling, and art was a way for them to piece it all back together. Another said it was simply because it was fun. Another, because they want to somehow control the world in which they live.
The different reasons for making art are various and personal. Everyone has a different view of art, their experiences of creating are not only various but they are ridiculously interesting in examining the artworks themselves. By understanding how and why we create art, it gives more meaning to the artwork itself. For example, if I was to say… I create art because I want to escape the frustrations of reality, and then went on to paint a landscape, you could likely deduct from that, that my painting is a imagined reality, somewhere I wish I was, somewhere I long to be, possibly an entirely made up landscape that I could call my utopia. So as you can see, knowing an artists’ motivations and processes can do a great deal to understand the artwork and how that is articulated through the work.
On the other hand, an artist’s motivations and processes may not matter, to an extent. This is not my personal belief, but it could be someone else’s, in which case I find it important to share. Why or how and artists made their work, in some people’s eyes, may not matter as much, as long as there’s an artwork in the end. Creating is a way to keep the arts running in Brisbane, as long as there’s still artwork being made, then that’s the main thing.
My passion for art comes with the creation process, making something from nothing is something that I’m entirely passionate about, in all forms of art (literature, visual art, drama, film, music etc.). While this topic is hugely ambiguous and varied, I thought it was entirely important to address. Everyone who is able to make something from nothing, is an absolute legend to me, it’s amazing.
So, to end, I’d love to open the conversation to our readers. I’m going to post a picture below of my own artwork, and I’d love for any readers to post a photo of their own and to comment on why YOU make art. I can’t wait to hear from everyone and to see the true variations of creatives.
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