39 x 3cm
x 50cm
During my 80 artworks challenge I thought about painting this when pausing to look for inspiration for a digital artwork. I wasn’t inspired by anything the other artists were doing, however I did notice something very sad. One popular artist made a few skits where she aimed to be comical and barely showed the artwork. Another wrote “I’ll show you this painting every day until I sell 100 prints” as he did a manly twirl and bopped around with the artwork. First, don’t sell prints. I’m firmly against prints of paintings. Second… Why would anyone buy that (to give description it were a white Chewbacca looking animal, and well executed). Art isn’t just a pretty picture and no matter how much you dance around or make skits, you’re not giving people a reason to buy the artwork. Neither of these “artists” gave any insight as to why they created it except décor. This really grinded my gears, and once again (like my artwork ‘Call for Shitty Artists’) I’m deeply disappointed to be in the same category. These people are putting minimal effort into the “artworks” and maximum effort into making themselves look good for the social attention. I’m looking forward to the day they give up on calling themselves artists and go with influencer or comic. On the left of this painting is another artist propping himself up in the same water’s I swim in, only he’s using his artworks to prop himself up, stay dry, and not get his hands dirty. On the right is me swimming, trying to keep my artwork out of the water. The artwork is what people need to see, not the artist. This artwork had it’s struggles as I think this might have been the round where I aimed to make either 12 or 14 artworks in that week. Time vs skill came into play here. I do document my art process on a few YouTubes and Patreon but it’s entirely different and unscripted… Kind of like an actual documentation, you know, the 90’s definition. This artwork is one of my hand-stretched ones, sold with hooks ready to hang and a certificate of authenticity.
45 x 3cm
x 32cm
In case another artist glances over this artwork, this is aimed at some of my peers. As someone who isn’t surrounded by art lovers or enthusiasts I’m letting you know that the general public still and has always looked at artworks with no effort put in it and ask themselves “WTF is this shit?”. I will redo this concept with a different take however when I saw someone on tv explaining to someone else it’s what the artwork makes them feel I felt like painting this. I feel conned from both perspectives as a viewer and an artist. I feel conned that someone else created something that looks like a 5 yr old made it and expects people to buy into it (literally) without giving the buyer a good reason except for the artists name being attached to it. As an artist I feel conned as people don’t have high expectations until they see my artworks, these artworks create a low bar of expectations and make the career choice look bad. I’m embarrassed to be in the same (general) category. I aimed for a simple artwork for two reasons, 80 artworks in 79 days, and I originally imaged a statue of a bust, giant like this one and half finished by one of these trendy artists. I painted a paint brush thrown at it, since that’s what I imagine these people are doing. I’ll have another go at this with an entirely different scene soon. You can see this trend particularly pronounced in elite art competitions, “Call for shitty artists”, said no one ever. It’s time for people creating these to reconnect with the general public over an elite crowd propping them up. This artwork is one of my hand-stretched ones, sold with hooks ready to hang and a certificate of authenticity.
