Artsramble Archive

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June 20, 2006
Responses to May’s Question
by artsRambler

Last month, we asked you to consider what is truth in art? You were invited to write your thoughts on the blog or send them to the artsrambler. All of the wonderful and composed thoughts came to me. Here is the compilation.

a brief essay on the question of the month
What is truth in art? Actually, I wouldn't phrase the question this way. Truth and artifice are too intimately connected to be separated and discussed as opposites or adversaries. The reason is that, at bottom, we (that is, all of us) require an audience of some sort and we have to figure out some relatively clever way to find one. To me this is fundamental and it applies to everything we do — from putting a coat of paint on a door or toning a photograph to make it look just right. Art, no matter how radical its content, must discover a way to make an audience look in its direction. In other words, "looks" are just as important as "content." People say you can't tell a book by its cover, which is true, but it's also true that you wouldn't read a book if the author can't write well . . . and if somebody writes well, isn't that bound up with what is said? Can a lousy writer be said to be an artist because of his seriousness or his dedication to truth? I don't think so. A writer must develop a STYLE of some sort before anyone will pay attention. I believe the same goes for any art

Performance, which lies at the heart of everything, makes truth available — and how can you separate performance from . . . artifice?

The distinction that interests me the most and which gives me a little purchase on art and artists isn't between truth and fiction but between truth and lies. This is really a moral problem, not an aesthetic one. Are you, as an artist (and it's usually to myself that I address the question), making the world nicer, prettier, kinder, less political and more acceptable than it really is? I take it for granted that the opposite of art is advertising, which merely dedicates itself to falsehood, to making something seem better than it is, Advertising can be immensely clever, even brilliant, but it's out to make a fool of you. Art, if it's really worth a damn, is out to discomfort you. And I don't mean that in a purely political way. Discovering beauty in a work of art can also be disturbing because we live in a world that's getting uglier and more deformed minute by minute — and in that context, Beauty, in a painting, a sculpture, a photograph, can remind us of who we are beneath the shit that we so helplessly accept.

John Rosenthal

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The Truth in Art is in the eye of the artist… no one else can tell an
artist what his or her truth is. There is a mystery in creating art; it's
the job of the artist to deepen the mystery.

Nancy Tuttle May
www.nancytuttlemay.com
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Truth in Art

Truth is the most important quality by which to judge an art work and it is the factor which determines its emotional impact on the viewer, as well as its longevity. (Perhaps it should be upfront that these statements come from an expressionist but I do believe them to apply to all of art.)

I work in a highly intuitive, obsessive and perhaps “superstitious” place, one which is difficult to put words on. My own personal truth and emotional terrain are what I explore in my work and I do not keep or display work that does not meet these marks. What constitutes this personal truth is made up of tangible and intangible concerns:
Are my lines spontaneous and felt, not forced?
Does the work make an authentic statement on the place I am in? (I believe this “statement” to ripple out beyond just the personal and into the realm of the geography, times, culture, etc. that surround me.)
Does the work contain some quality of mystery, something that holds the viewer and does not easily reveal its method of creation?
Finally, there is the indescribable but distinctly certain feeling when a work is beyond oneself (i.e. supersedes one’s mere technical skill and takes on a life of its own.) It is the feeling that the work had to be and was simply channeled through you as a means to its existence. This is the mark of my best work.

When I feel a piece meets these criteria, then it is finished and I accept it, meaning I will keep it. I imagine that every artist has their own method and madness to determining their work’s value and state of completion. Mine revolves chiefly around the matter of truth and I suppose I am just idealistic enough to think that this matters to the viewer as well.
Ashlynn Browning
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A creator’s truth is constructed by his memory. His story is as true as the mechanism of his recall. It’s memory that is the key intangible in process–not inspiration or talent or craftsmanship. Truth is the reflected image of how we remember imagery, narratives, emotions and our alphabet.
S.J.Coop
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Is a painting of a chair as true as a sculpted chair as true as the textual definition of “chair”? short answer: No. A textual chair is form (a seat) and function (that can be sat in/on). If you see a log that is in the right place to make it easy for you to sit on it, it’s still a log until you sit on it. Then it becomes your temporary chair. When you decide to move one, the log is simply a log again. Using that argument, a painting of a chair or a nonfunctional sculpture of a chair is not a chair but a representation or interpretation of a chair (either permanent or temporary). Which, to me, is very freeing. Neither the most realistic painting of a chair nor a stroke across the paper that is called by the author “A chair” is truly a chair therefore both are on the same plane technically, psychologically and physically. This frees the artist to draw a clothesline with one bird perched on it and title the work “Chair” because that what it is to the artist. (if there were three birds maybe she could title the work “Couch”) The painting is true and real-canvas, paint, graphite etc. but the chair is not. My question is: If you painted objects or designs on a chair, is it a painting on a chair or a painted chair? Catherine Thornton
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in response to the artramble question on truth
We are born tabula rasa, a blank slate and will spend a significant part of our lives searching for a meaning or purpose for living or a sense of being a self. It is from this process and arriving at some sense of Beeing that we make our truths.
I discovered my Being, as an artist.
So for me truth is the sum of my experiences (to date),, my innate beliefs and all acts by which I show by essential Being.
As an artist my truth in art, is predicated on this and the set of values I have for art, which are

1. that art is a conveyer of knowledge and experience

2.that art is a defining and responsible human activity

3.that an artist is part of the continuum of humanity and the manifestation of that in art.

4.that as an artist I have the responsibility to honor and respect humanity and art alike

5.that in my art, I must reflect my personal humanity, along with my appreciation and understanding of art. Or put another way, my art must reflect everything I believe and would represent as true, as I aim to do within my sense of Being.
Antonio Rivera