Who to please?

When working in the arts there is usually an audience to consider, or if the art is for university or school there is the professor to consider. Will he/she appreciate what I create? Is it even important that he/she likes it? If art is merely an opinion, that means there is no right or wrong or rules set in stone to go by, well of course that is all a dream. People say art is about self expression, but is it truly about the self?

Generally when I work there are always outside influences, whether they are subconscious or conscious. They exist. The color of the room, the sounds heard, life experiences that i have bought to the work. Even a passing by a colleague saying “oh I love the red” or “there is something about her that makes me uneasy”. Occurrences, actions and Words affect the way I work whether I like it or not I cannot be separated from it. Therefore I have to embrace the experiences and apply them within the outcomes which in the beginning I found hard but now I am living with it.

Should I please the audience? I don’t think that it is possible to please everyone, so there is no point in trying. I don’t like doing work for a particular audience. That is probably why I moved away from being a graphic designer into visual art, although my graphics background has to come into what I produce (that is the subconscious influence the computer has on me) What I tend to do is create work I can relate to which is visually pleasing yet with strong substance.

Another problem I have ran into is I was using very high impact visuals using Arabian women, then when I did some research on photographing the Arabian female, I found a young famous artist (around my age) using almost the exact same technique. I did not even know she even existed! And I’m very sure she had no idea I existed as well, so how did the both of us produce similar imagery without even knowing about the other. What was it about the life we led (perhaps similar) that swayed us onto the same path. It was unreal to see her work it was as if I was viewing my own.

(notice I have not posted images of the work, something is stopping me yet I don’t know what it is)

Thought of the day:- “life is a surreal experience”