Art process

WHAT IS AN ARTISTIC PROCESS:

Well, I really don’t know what an artistic process but when I think about it, I feel it’s subjective to every artist. It’s their way and style of working and growing as an artist. Its not just events from an artist’s life but it are the entire life. For me it’s the making of an artist.

As a child I would often get disappointed with my paintings and art works that I made, I would cry saying it doesn’t look perfect, and I can’t draw to make it look good. And this would bother me so much that I wouldn’t want to draw again. As I grew up I began to realise that it’s not always about the perfect picture. I often heard my parents talk to me and tell me how the process matters and the effort you put in, also how the art work evolves.

A recent incident that I can recall was when our graduation festival winter at Srishti was going on, I called my Father to tell him that some of the projects by the diploma students were very good some were not so great, and that’s when my father told me was that the project that you don’t like you are judging by the final piece but, that’s not what the it’s about its about the process. How you come to the final piece is what matters.

Now when I think about it, I feel the process is more important cause that’s were all the learning and research happens. While working we try out so many ways and out that we choose one. For example while making a painting on discovers ways and methods. A lot of time unexpected accidents happen. There is a lot that goes into making an artwork and that’s the process, which is what makes the art beautiful in a way. I feel the art process in itself is an art work, it’s like a journey.

We watched 2 films in class about two very famous artists, about their lives and artistic process, it helped me realise that it’s not so easy and it’s a forever-long journey. After watching the films about 2 very different artist lives, though both their genre is abstract expressionism; both the artists are poles apart in their work. First artist we saw was Mark Rothko who had a very different style of art but also a very different approach as compared to the second artist who was Jackson Pollock.

Rothko explored how forms could float in space, space being his canvas. Sometimes it appeared as if they were advancing towards you and sometimes as if they were quietly receding away from you. Rothko was extremely notoriously hermetic about his studio practices. He worked in isolation, Rothko layered zone over zone of paint in his work. On the other hand Jackson Pollock had a very different life, he discovered his style while working on an artwork. Pollock’s unconventional process and his organized, yet very chaotic patterns of splattered paint. It’s not just a splatter of paint as he has all control over were he drops the paint. Jackson Pollock lived a very extreme life with a lot of alcohol dependence. I don’t know if the kinds of lives and art process they had are the only way to make great art, but their lives where very extreme.  And when I look at both their works and know about their extreme art process I can relate to it and I feel both of these things; the art and the artistic process have to be looked in a context together and not in isolation. As the artist can’t exist without his art, same way the art can’t exist without an artistic process.
I don’t know what my artistic process is and what my style is which I’m still discovering and learning. But as a student of art I know the importance of an art process and I can say my artistic process is still in the making as I discover more of art and myself...