The Quick Q & A editorial in Beautiful Bizarre Magazine is a much loved regular feature, in which we ask 6 artists the same 4 questions. In the March 2020 Issue 28, these were the Quick Q & A questions:
- Art is a visual language. What are you hoping to communicate to the viewer through your work?
- What is the most challenging part about creating Art for you?
- Do you think beauty in art is important?
- What role do you feel art and the artist have in today’s society?
We feel that the artists’ responses provide such a valuable insight for our community of artists that we wanted to share one Quick Q & A response from each issue with you, going forward. The March 2020 Issue 28 print issue is sold out, but you can download the digital magazine via our webstore to read more. To ensure you never miss an issue again, you can also subscribe to Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, and have each issue sent straight to your door each quarter.
Excerpt from Issue 28 // March 2020 Quick Q & A editorial: Artists Lani Imre, Alexandra Dvornikova, Harold Munoz, Cassidy Rae Marietta, Marisa Aragon Ware, and Sandra Ovenden respond to the below Quick Q & A:
What role do you feel art and the artist have in today’s society?
“Art draws our attention to issues that can otherwise be too tough to handle while simultaneously creating the possibilities of where we are going as a society. Art gives us the ability to be with complex issues and emotions, because art exists in and is comfortable in unresolved spaces. I think that those who pursue the creation of art in this world remind us of courage, compassion and higher purpose. I think it is important for artists to be financially successful, but ultimately it is the act of creation that drives them. And in a society that often values money beyond all else, this can be a powerful stand to take. Art and artists remind us of things worth fighting for.”
“I think the role of art, in general, is pretty much the same as in the past – to spread ideas and emotions across to people. But today we face informational overload. There is too much knowledge, different conceptions, and intellectual models. And there is no more common and collective understanding of the world around to unite people. Art contains much more concentrated information and it appeals not only to our brain but to our soul as well. It balances rational things with irrationals, logic with emotions. Considering this, visual art has more potential to connect people by speaking the universal language. And it takes seconds to perceive the visual message. Culture doesn’t let us fall apart and it guides and summarises everything.”
“Artistic creation will give its author a strong sense of the freedom we all need today, in a highly controlled and formatted society. The artist is an “opener of the spirit”, and art shows us what exists elsewhere that in our inner world, what it is possible to see, to conceive, to imagine. Art and the artist open fields of reflection and fields of emotions. Art expands our perspectives. The true artist is a mirror of his time and this causes changes in us, even if they are very light. Art is indispensable because it examines the human condition from all angles, accelerates our understanding of the world, of life, of others. And then, the artist makes us travel, moves us, transforms us, makes us laugh and sometimes irritates us (and that suits us, as artists).”
“We all have the solemn responsibility to share our voices. I know that I don’t speak alone when I say that this political climate has been a challenging time for women and minorities. Yet it’s also been a time of immeasurable empowerment and I’ve watched so many artists flourish, as though a breach has been opened in them. This small light that has been dormant for so long has been activated, and nothing will ever be the same. We owe it to both ourselves and our youth to learn from certain injustices to pave a more positive future. It’s a recurring cycle that repeats throughout history and art and artists have always had a longstanding role in how we view the world.”
“There are as many different roles for artists as there are individual artists in existence. For me, there’s no issue more pressing than climate change. The myriad of linked catastrophes of deforestation, plastic pollution and mass extinction are equally consequential. If people remain disconnected from nature, these issues will not be addressed with the zeal that is needed to halt environmental destruction. Biophilia is a theory which asserts that humans have an intrinsic dependence on nature that extends far past our physical sustenance. Through evolutionary development, we came to rely on nature for spiritual and cognitive meaning; I intend to reconnect people with that capacity. Hopefully, this will inspire them to care more deeply about the plethora of issues facing our planet and home.”
“I feel art plays a large role inherently within humanity. What we choose to wear, what music we listen to, how we choose to show up in the world, it’s all a form of artistic expression. Every person is in their own way an artist. In its traditional form, art has and always will provide an important role in terms of creating an experience. Whether it causes a person to feel a certain way, or it makes them think, even if someone looks at an artwork and hates it, or if it makes them angry, it still elicits a form of response. So it allows the viewer to experience some thing, or think about something they may not normally touch upon in their everyday life.”
