Presenting as an artist

 Presenting as an artist   

22/02/2025

Recently I have been thinking more about how I present myself as an artist to my wider audience. We had been given an opportunity to create and sell work at the Bonington as part of the zine fair. I had very contrasting ideas of what I wanted to create, Do I create cute sketchy work I know will sell? Or do I stay true to my publication/work style? 

This opened up wider questions about how I show myself as an artist. During my first year of FDA I was testing so many workshops and materials, lots of printing, ceramics and painting. My ideas and thinking behind projects had similar themes of questioning to now but the presentation was a lot more angsty, intentionally messy. My work now is very clean and editorial, I still use these other materials like ceramics and printing but something changed. I think I prefer the clean aesthetic of my work now, I think a few things have influenced this. During the 2nd year of FDA I was exposed to a lot more to performance art, and lensed based work as well as artists that use such styles like Sophie Calle and Anna Fox. During the 2nd year of the FDA I also started using deeper topics as inspiration in my projects, I spoke a lot with Tom about this, I was particularly worried about how it could effect my work but it was still something I wanted to explore, I didn't want my work to become reminiscent of sloppy art therapy pieces, seeing the work of previous artists mentioned helped me combat this. I was also having a pretty crappy time at home, there was a lot of violent and sad things happening around me, I wanted my work to be the opposite, it was a calm place for me.

So I came to a conclusion, With the zine fair I will just create both ideas, I don't think I should not create an idea I like just because I think it might not sell. My work is ever changing, it may take a completely different visual journey in the future but I'm content with where I am at now.