Art is Life is Art

ART IS LIFE IS ART

A female robot made from old cereal boxes, egg cartons, toilet paper rolls and straw. This was my very first art work, a sculpture, at the age of 9. It was laughed at by my classmates, because I made a point of giving my female rather proportionate breasts. To me it made sense, to complete a female form with the very things that make it obvious to the outside world that in fact, she is a woman.

I suppose I have always viewed life from a very feminine angle by seeing beauty and sensuality as integral elements of not only life, but death and the cycle of both that propels constant rebirth.

It’s been 22 Years since that very first robotic creation, and my art has come a long way and certainly been influenced by life’s little surprises and random shocks (which includes more than just the first morning glance in the mirror).

Not in the least, my time at James Cook University’s Art School not only taught me invaluable methods, and techniques, but also provided me with a maturity towards my own life and the way I use art within my life.

Nudes were a big thing. Life drawings and executing plastic torsos with anything from graphite to polyester resin was not unusual and this is where, I think, my love affair with art and how it can illustrate life, really began. Although, as I was not always the sharpest pencil of the pack….my work always had a ‘brave substance’ to it, as I was once told. At the time, it would have seemed that I took no notice of the lessons being taught…but even now when I spend my time painting, drawing, sculpting or printing…. I am grateful for those lessons, as they feel as fresh in my mind now as they were then.

Of course also, I have been influence by many Artists before me and those who create work now in 2010. Frida Kahlo and Marlene Dumas are two of my favourite female artists, Brett Whitely and Richard Gillespie have also created very abstract works with finite concepts….but it is not the famous artists that really influence me in my work.

Life and the human condition is what I love to work with. Men, women, children, hunger, anger, eroticism, food, music, sex, culture, water, fire, a living breath. .. The list goes on. These are the things that excite me in my work to a point of no return. I feel it is why I have been put into this world; to bring beauty to people in a way that they don’t expect, through sadness and joy.
In my art I want to make people feel the rawest emotions they have. I want to strike a chord within souls that reveals newness to them. I want to start a revolution of love, life, difference and indifference through what I create in my mind through my hands.

Needless to say, it can be a struggle to really get your work out there as an emerging artist, especially if the trends within the art world are not really as inviting as producing something totally new or accepting of things totally innovative.

However, I have faith in life and art, that life is art and art is life. Is this all I need to be a happy artist? Only time will tell, as well as the money I make on my work.

So, as a concluding spiel to the thoughts of my artistic and erratic female mind that firmly believes that breasts have an important role in our world….I shall leave you with this small exercise to perhaps try in your own life and time. When you are listening to your favourite music and sipping on a rescuing coffee or glass of wine…think to yourself, ‘what is it about this moment that I am truly indulging in? How do I feel? What colour do I feel? What am I thinking? Why? How can I externalize this feeling?’ ,….and even if it is picking up a pen and writing a few words….this my friends…this is art…because, life is art..Is life.

Now let me go and create more art and live…..
Natalie M.

‘I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality. Frida Kahlo