Criticism II

Sorry for the delay here, I've been on travel. It's so fitting this entry follows the last post. Since my recent work has expanded into wildlife, I decided to follow up with a gallery I've had my eye on for awhile. It's one of the top galleries in town, very reputable. Not only do they feature high-end art, they have the clients to follow and they're very good to their artists. They have a reputation of paying when the work sells. (This topic is another blog post! I'll come back to it, promise) A little backstory here, my last correspondence was 2 years ago;  it's good, when possible not to burn your bridges, you never know when you'll need them again. An artist currently in the gallery suggested I contact them when I showed him my horses back in 2007.

So I emailed this contact with examples of my work, (all horses - I was fairly new at them, experiencing with a looser, impressionistic style). He thanked me and had problems with my rendering of their anatomy. Well to be honest, he ripped my work up one side and down the other.....I was beginning to wonder why my artist friend had referred me.....but I thanked this contact for his time and asked if I may follow up in the future, which he welcomed. 

But inside I was fuming!!

Confused, defeated, but knowing I still had talent and needed to continue, I set this experience aside - keeping a critical eye on my anatomy of horses.

And now, a few years later with wildlife subjects added, I decided to follow up. I'm going to paste his response below:

Deborah,

Thank you for your email and photos.  You have some very nice paintings in this group.  My main concern is the backgrounds of the paintings.  Not very exciting.  I know, you want to focus on the animal(s) but there still needs to be some interest there.  Also, the separation between your subject and the background is not evident.  The wolf painting is a good example of this.  I like how you executed the wolf but the background seems to be right on top of him/her.

I hope this information is helpful to you.

Though my work may not be "there" for him just yet, this response and critique is much improved from our last.  He likes my animals and has no problem with the anatomy, and this time it's a selection of multiple species. His concern is backgrounds; which is a relief. Honestly, backgrounds do baffle me, they're not the focus of my work - the animal is. I have some ideas for experimentation in my next series of works.

He knows his gallery and clients, and what sells. Playing with some background changes does not compromise my artistic integrity or alter the focus of my works. Some artists think any suggestion of change means to forfeit their vision and to them I ask: Is it really? Though I may come from an emotionally invested angle with my work, he views it as commodity; it's a product. The difference between art as a livelihood vs. art as a hobby, comes down to this:

Is the work sellable?