My slightly divided art practice

Since beginning my masters course, my practice has entirely split, and although I’ve always intended for those two practices to end up coming together, they have only become more separate. Those who have been following me for a while likely have seen these changes, and I will be honest, the changes are freaking me out a little bit. Simply because I don't know what will come of my practice after I finish my degree.

One side of my art career is where I began on the course, where I was making paintings specifically geared towards aesthetics, and in turn, the sell-ability of these pieces. This is what you will see a lot of on my website, and it is what most people who follow me know me for, my bright, colourful, fetish themed paintings. I still love these, and I love creating them (even if I haven't had as much time to dedicate to them as I used to). The other side of my art practice is an entirely reduced version of my paintings, it takes art and reduces it as far as possible to explore the extent to what art can be. My main focus with the practice I have at university is to deconstruct art as a subject, revealing its inherent silliness and flaws.

I did initially try to use painting as a form of visual language to express my distaste towards art and art institutions, which although successful in ways (it did result in the partial consumption of a painting), it didn't feel like the most useful medium. Since in a lot of my work at this point had text, the visual painted elements just didn't seem worth it, and the pieces honestly would have more impact if they were just reduced down to text. My art practice at university is just becoming less and less visual, whereas my practice outside of that is almost entirely visual, and far less conceptual. Will my in-university practice end up informing my painting practice after the course? Fuck knows.

Now, this is okay, both of these practices separate do fulfil me, but it does insight some questions. Such as, which of them is art? I think that my paintings are definitely seen more as 'art', even though the vast majority of them are inherently meaningless, they are just pretty. And obviously there is value in beauty, and people gain a lot from my work, I know my paintings make people happy in the way they make other people happy. My paintings are often seen as having artistic value outside of university, and to online audiences due to their aesthetic and technical value, whereas inside the university, they are seen as having less value due to their lack of meaning and research. So, what makes art? Is it the meaning, or is it the object? Could my art be just a concept, does it even need an object?

I can't, and won't be answering that question.