High-calibre artists are not only masters of their chosen discipline, with the ability to explain how they make their work, but they can also articulate why they make the work.
What does it mean to have a ‘logic’ to an art practice? If you don’t know what that is, are you missing something? Well, maybe. In this article, I’ll briefly explore some of the differences between art ‘style,’ art ‘trends,’ and the ‘logic’ of one’s art practice. I’ll show why it is important to ask yourself the question of logic for your practice.
In very simple terms, an art style can help an artist define their brand, or the look of their art. Having a defined style can be a helpful strategy for sales. Art movements happen when several artists work with and explore the same or similar styles. Art history is full of art movements and art styles. However, art no longer seems to be constrained by art movements these days. We are in the hyper-complexity of trends. Art trends are harder to pinpoint because they shift and mutate, but generally they are decided by art world experts. These decisions, for the lack of a better word, are based on complexities in culture and society, recent knowledge production, current technological developments, environmental pressures, and the thinkers who write about these issues around the world. Trending artists are selected by art world experts as the best examples of the times they reflect. Art trends are on show at contemporary art institutions in every corner of the globe.
However, the logic of an artist’s practice is the mechanism by which artists make key decisions for the development of their work. While styles come in and out of favour and trends are defined by a wider discourse outside the studio, the logic of an art practice is completely within the artist’s control. The logic of an artist’s practice makes up the boundaries an artist chooses for their own work, and an artist has full agency to change those boundaries whenever they choose.
Personally, I like a good boundary because it gives me something to push against, but what makes boundaries flexible is research done in the studio. Through research, limits are tested and reset. Likewise, a strong boundary can be reinforced by research and shown to be full of future potential for discovery. These are the lines of thinking that move an artist forward in the development of their work. Bring a defined logic for the practice into the mix and an artist has a structure within which to run these lines of thinking, keeping them relevant to each other, resonant with influences, and visible for deeper exploration and development.
Consider this hypothetical example, as an artist you work with natural materials, making pigments, making paper, making forms from vegetation harvested from the garden. These are boundary choices. You elect to work with only natural materials in your practice because you like being in nature. But you have a wider concern that the nature you love is under threat. Perhaps you have a familial connection to an elder who had knowledge of natural healing with plants. Therefore, you wish to respect the specialised knowledge in your family, preserving and expanding the aesthetic understanding of the threatened nature that you love before it is lost. This is a logic. This is the reason why you have made the choice to work with only natural materials in your practice. It is the reason you research with different aspects offered by natural materials making pigments, and paper, and other forms. With such a logic, you have the potential to expand your research even further into performance, into colour theory, into artistic activism, and so on. With a logic for your practice you have a framework for posing questions, making diversions, exploring beyond where you were yesterday in your practice. Artists who have defined the logic of their practice are grounded artists. They are not turning their head at every new trend or mimicking another’s style. With a logic artists can absorb trends and styles as an when it makes sense for their practice. It is just as likely that artists with a logic to their practice influence the trends and styles.
A practice is not just the ‘how’ but also the ‘why.’ Define the ‘why’ and you have the logic for your practice. With this knowledge you will be able to make deeper more fulfilling and fruitful decisions for your practice. You will feel more in control about its direction with a foundation against the vagaries of trends and styles.
