Appropriation

I've been thinking a lot lately about Art in general and have read so many articles, blogs etc on how to sell your work and what does sell and what you should or shouldn't be doing and I've got a tad pissed off to put it mildly.

To me an artist's style is their signature and you go to an artist or look at their work because you know what they can do. I also think a true style is one in which a natural flow occurs and not because someone has looked at someone elses work and copies their style. This differs from looking at other artists work in an inspirational way, that is seeing another's thought process and bringing a minor essence into your own work... normally through a mutual appreciation of the concept of the piece eg Art Nouveau.

I feel a style, although it can expand and grow, is tantamount to maintaining an honest approach both within work and life on a broader scale. It shows integrity, that you are honest in your work. A case in point is the artwork of Bec Winnel, I love her work and its style and flow. Looking through her past work and having followed her for some time it is enjoyable to see her art grow and her popularity hit the skyline. Her work is published and exhibited everywhere and I think that is amazing. But then you turn around and .... suddenly her style is being copied... note not used for inspiration to incorporate into their own style... outright copied. If you placed one of her works and another artists work next to each other it would be difficult to tell them apart.

Why is this trend suddenly started to happen? Art movements in general have a common theme... as before I expressed an example of Art Nouveau, a movement which incorporated an ethos of natural form which was presented by many different artists over many different mediums. The movement included architecture, painting, ceramics, sculptures etc...  

There are also the people who simply don't even pretend to have a style and simply steal work and post it about as their own or as the assumed artist. Many a time I have found my own work being paraded about the net under the guise of being someone elses whether I watermark my work or not. Potentially a watermark is an easy enough thing to remove if you have basic image editor.

It seems we are in an age of massive appropriation in art and maybe this is to do with our current cultural state? Why buy designer when the highstreet will have close enough the exact same thing being strutted down the runways of the world? Everything has to be cheap and it is seemingly at the cost of our own integrity.

I don't know why this has bothered me so much of late. Maybe it is because I like pushing my work out there and experimenting with my own style and knowing it is my own style but maybe that is all 'old school' now?




The amazing work of Bec Winnel can be viewed here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bec-Winnel/48722434365