It is only natural that when others view my work they come up with artists whose work may be similar to mine. I want to consider for a moment what this means. Part of being an artist is finding a unique expression for what interests us. However, just as there are only so many combinations of words to make a poem, I think painting will always inevitably fall into groups, schools, or genres. We are all people, after all, having the experience of our humanity and it is inevitable that some forms of our expression will be similar. I am frankly proud to be apart of something beautiful and fluid rather than on an island, artistically. Below I have two examples of artwork that my own has been compared to. I cannot say I saw these works before I did my own, because honestly I did not. However, both these artists are in general familiar to me and I respect both of them immensely:
Vincent Van Gogh’s trees: (As seen in image) I get this one a lot, and I definitely see the resemblance. I also cannot hide the fact that I love his work and his use of color and mark. He is very aggressive and reacts to his own canvas more than to his subject. I get that.
Piet Mondrian’s trees: This one was new to me. I have always loved Mondrian, but for his later work and his writing. I had never before seen his tree paintings, which are from an earlier period in his career. I just recently looked them up, and all I can say is that I like him even more now. I feel a strange affinity to him, wondering if he took a similar path as me, once, even briefly.
The power of influence and history in art is profound and I do not want the story to dictate my work, but I take pleasure in knowing that others thought like me once.
Image: Vincent Van Gogh , Branch of an Almond Tree in Blossom (1890)