[(Artist) a student at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, July 2012, Bellagio, IT]
A university art student at Brera seems to render his or herself as a young, beautiful, confused, and "innocent" captive. She may be alluding to captivity by such concepts as her own art, or she might simply (and complexly) have rendered the spirit of modern art as she knows it. Who knows!
I read the Portrait of an Artist in a recent New Yorker that described an artist as the typical, frazzled madman-eccentric. It sounded a lot like a mixed description of various rock/hipster band members with a low B1 count and a dash of Baldassari. It made me think critically about what is the portrait of an artist. Playing off of the first idea -- that she is consumed by her own work -- rather than off the more probable idea that this is a sort of spirit of modern art, we might read this as the artist's self portrait.
Our protagonist's message is loud, electric, and viral, particularly through the sharp lines, intense color, and flood-like teardrops. She cowers behind a lifted, limp hand, donning an overbearing garment laden with too many ideas to ponder all at once - too many for anyone! She's crying. She screams, "HELP ME!" dramatically as if she intends to draw people's attention. To be honest, this regular diva might just want people to look at her but then let her wallow in her misery. In this way, she garners the inspiration needed to create more intense art, more songs that convey pain, and more poems that articulate her bitterness. Artists often want you to think and/or feel something. They might hope to incite certain feelings and ideas within the viewer through their work; they want their work to be the vessel that sparks this. AND, via a self portrait, the artist often wants you to think about him.
-- or a commentary on the conglomeration or overbearingness of modern art figures and types reoccurring in today's world --
as it is an artist's extrovert moment.
Still, she makes me want to cry...
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