Surrealism, pop art, impressionism, abstract, realism. There are many different styles that an artist can incorporate into their pieces. They can shuffle through many styles until finding the one that lights a spark. The one that gives them their voice on the canvas. The one that builds a connection from their soul into the world.
Realism’s goal is to show life as accurately and detailed as possible. Requiring close attention to the subject of the piece and even more attention to the pen or brush strokes.
“My art style is realism but I add my own artistic touch,” senior Dontae Eley said. “When I get an idea from I use references then I tweak it to match my view in my head like moving an arm or a rail.”
Despite Dontae’s art style showing immense detail like most realism pieces, he gets inspiration from manga artists showing that inspiration can come from any source, not just those that fall into the same genre.
“I definitely took inspiration from two people,” Dontae Eley said. “One of them is Junji Ito, who is known for his horrifying and twisted comics and Hirohiko Araki, creator of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, which I interpret his fashion with my style.”
In contrast, surrealism’s or abstract’s goal is to depict scenes that don’t necessarily make sense on purpose. This needs artists to significantly increase the amount of creative liberties used in their piece.
“It’s really hard to describe my style because I implement aspects surrealism, abstract, as well as realism as well,” junior Jaiden Perez said. “For me it helps me make sense of the things that don’t and i’m able to express things that feel so grand and bigger than life.”
Pillars in art history like Picasso have inspired past generations and even future ones. Not only Picasso but any artist who stacks layers of complexity and meaning, Jaiden uses them to inspire his next piece.
“I would say Guernica by Picasso is breathtaking,” Jaiden said. “It depicts a town after a disaster and this one artist, Micheal Armitage, his work is just really beautiful.”
Finally, anime has become a style that has become popular in recent years. Which is inspired mainly by japanese media and goal is to focus more on stylization rather than realism
“I’d say my art style leans more towards an anime type art style,” senior Yami Fairley says. “I just liked the idea of a more stylised art style so i tried doing that with my work and ended up with a more anime style art style.”
Inspiration for a style in most cases comes from childhood when they see something so meaningful that it creates a ripple in their soul and echoes into all their art.
“My biggest inspiration was Kazuki Takahashi, the creator of Yugi-Oh, which I used to watch religiously when I was a child,” Fairley said. “His art was always interesting to me and I knew that I wanted to do something like that but not nearly to the extent.”
People have been making art since the stone age and despite the centuries, artists are still innovating, creating, and personalizing one piece after the other but how?
“With the content, with the style of their painting, drawing, or sculpting any kind of originality they put into it using their own ideas.” Art Teacher Ms. Barbee said. “That’s how they make it original and that’s how they end up finding their niche in the art world.”
