Artist Help & Tips
Art Writings Introduction 2
I have learnt to market myself and I have learnt how to write press releases. I have developed a sound business sense and have made successful investments that have worked well for me. I have also made mistakes and learnt from them. I have realized there are certain secrets in all forms of work including the art business.
Art Writings Introduction 1
That question was this: how am I going to make a living out of my career as an artist?
Is recycling sustainable with in the art world?
I’ve been very cautious to use materials in a way that for me is honest. My intention is to make something beautiful out of these objects. My intention is not to be out there waving my finger at people. The message is there. I am wanting to make something beautiful using a difficult medium. Especially with beach plastic, which waves an environmental red flag, because someone had to throw it there or it’s washing ashore.
Artist perceptions
I believe we are at a point in time where we are about to take a quantum leap in consciousness. It is essential. The way that things are on the planet can’t continue like this and I feel that if each of us begins at home with ourselves with our own transformation we may have a chance of bringing this much-needed sense of oneness to our planet once again.
Accumulating garbage to make art
I bought these plastics back to my studio to sift, sort, and colour-code for my assemblages, sculptures and installations. As I worked with these objects, I became even more fascinated by the way they had been modified and weathered by the ocean and nature’s elements. My challenge as an artist was to take these found objects, which might on first meeting have no apparent dialogue, and to work with them until they spoke and told their story, which included those underlying environmental messages inherent in the use of this kind of medium.
Forces that drive the creator
People have expressed to me an awareness that manifests after seeing my found object artwork. When they walk the beach they feel awakened by possibilities.
An artist’s future
After more than 10 years of collecting beach found objects and subsequently making art out of them, I’ve naturally come now to a new form of expression, which was brought on significantly as a result of the decrease in litter either washing up or being left behind on our beaches, as well as a result of my purge painting series and exploration.
Common denominators with my environmental art
Many artists are now highlighting environmental concerns in their work, such as climate change. I am always hopeful that art can help shift awareness in a positive direction. I am also hopeful that the viewing public embraces these messages and is moved to act, for I firmly believe that at present we need all the help we can get to address the current ecological needs of our planet.
Artistic expression, Does consumption encourage it or not?
In many ways because there is much less plastics on the beaches around where I live these days, I have also naturally moved on. I began working with recycled plastic bags, painting seascapes of the beaches I walked so many years collecting rubbish off and lately, working with recycled dead trees.
So in one sense yes, in my case consumption has encouraged artistic expression. I am not the only one, there are many more like me who are making successful comments on today’s consumerist society in various ways and mediums.
Visual arts inclinations and other explorations # 2
Exposure to international art in London and Europe, in the early eighties, encouraged me to pursue my career as an artist. One defining moment was experienced at the Tate Gallery in London, 1981. In a gallery space devoted to Mark Rothko, the American abstract expressionist, I experienced the depth of and commitment in his work. The exhibition moved me to tears, and provided a level of inspiration that I had not experienced until that point. Another Rothko piece (from a different period), seen several years later while visiting the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, filled me with the same feeling of understanding.
See John Dahlsen’s Recent Works
