"The function of the artist is to make people like life better than they have before."Kurt Vonnegut just posted this on twitter. I know. A dead guy with a twitter account. Tweeting from beyond the grave to 114570 followers. (I will never have that many followers, which is okay, especially if I'd have to be dead to accomplish it.) But I did google it and apparently he did, at one time, probably when he was still alive, actually say this.
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| safe harbor, 2011, acrylic, first of the safety paintings |
For me personally, within my own artwork, I find this true. I take bad things and make them pretty. I escape from my own reality into safe places. This is the whole idea behind my safety series paintings. The america paintings go one step further, so as to appear to be landscapes. They are still figurative abstracts, but with a palette change to make them feel like actual places. I'm calling them figurative landscapes. On the surface, this name sounds confusing but it is accurate and appropriate, and so I'm sticking with it.
So do you agree with KV? Is this the point of art to make us collectively feel better about our lives? about ourselves? Is it this only or is there more?
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