Many Styles, One Voice
What I’m about to say will appear to go directly against my last post — and I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t agree fully with my last post. However after much thinking (ten minutes in the shower, and over fifteen years of mindless self argument), I’m officially posing the question: Can a single artist use many styles successfully?
I think it’s a common misconception that style is what signifies an artist. While artists are typically known by their styles - as a way of classifying and simplifying their public recall, Picasso oscillated between various styles throughout his lifetime. Michelangelo was both painter and sculpture. And while the market demanded that both of these men produce a certain style once they’d become famous, they never gave up their other modes of visual expression.
This brings me to my point, that today, with a fine art market seemingly dead — and a commercial art market — the world of graphic designers very much alive — an artist should never feel afraid of working in a new style, or exploring a new way of visual expression. Today’s plurality allows for the artist to move beyond style. The choice is not finding your style, but finding the best expression for what you wish to say. The role of the artist is to make the choice — say it — and move on. In a sense, you become art director and artist simultaneously.
