Destruction project

At first I was nervous to destroy something I had made to make another piece of art because this idea is completely unconventional to me. Usually, every piece of art that I make takes hours and hours due to the fact that I use a lot of detail. So the thought of destroying a piece of art, that was labor intensive and something that I am proud of, would never occur to me because it seems like it would be a waste of that time I spent creating it. The more I thought about the assignment though I chose to destroy one piece of art and add those pieces to another piece I had done.

For this project I took one of my live model drawings and added to what I had already done. I liked the idea of revisiting some piece of work that you have done previously and expanding and manipulating it. For me, this project was fun and even therapeutic because there was no expectation to make the piece perfect, there was just the act of creating. Often times I find myself getting caught up in making the perfect piece or trying to make something that I think other people will think is good. By doing this, making art becomes stressful as if it is a performance that everyone is watching and judging. The one thing that I tried to keep in mind while working on this piece was to enjoy the process of creating. Once I was able to let go of my perfectionistic tendencies the process became fun and expressive rather than a performance.

An artist whose work I found  particularly interesting was Gerhard Richter. I love his style of painting over his photographs and while his work is not something that influenced my own work I find his style quite beautiful and a style that I would want to explore in the future. Some of his work was completely covered in paint and others of his works were only partially covered. Those that were partially covered were not fully destroyed and yet they are still beautiful.  

One thing that I struggled with was completely destroying the piece I was working on. What I mean by this is that I kept the figure intact and did minimal destruction to the final piece. While I knew that destruction of the piece was the goal I think subconsciously I was unable to fully understand and accept this idea. Therefore, I was unable to fully let go of control and the need to keep things intact and make something pretty.

On the other hand, I did destroy another piece of art in order to add and develop the final piece. So, in this case the destruction is hidden but the destruction is still there. Furthermore, just because you cannot see the parts that are destroyed does not mean that there was no process of destruction. In fact destruction of another piece can lead to beauty within another piece which is what I believe I captured in the final piece.