I know what to do, I just don't

Anyone?

>>17402783
Maybe you should just do what you did before, get together with a friend and paint something that you feel like

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>>17402364
>I need ideas
You don't need ideas, just paint some stupid shit that any retarded can do and make up a story behind that shit.
Always a retarded will buy it, doesn't matter the cost.
This is how modern art works.
Pic related.

>>17402364
Could you show half a dozen of your works (more would be better, but tedious to upload), to understand wtf is art for you?

>>17403334
Yeah thanks, I'm guessing you saw that painting on a d/ic/khead thread today. I know how 'modern art' works, I spent three years in university studying it. What you're suggesting is what I have been doing, and it feels void and pointless, and I hate to be praised for it.

>>17403295
That painting is quite recent. 2 years old. And my friend don't want to make paintings any more. What I'm talking about lacking is the youthful energy in my work 8, 9, 10 years ago.

>>17403351
I can select a few I guess. Don't mind uploading, but haven't got access to that much variety.

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>>17403351
Pretty sure I've posted this on 4chan before, but whatever.

From 2007

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>>17403351
A couple in progress from earlier this year. I've mostly been doing digital work due to short term medical condition.

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>>17403351
From my graduation show. This is probably some of my more accomplished paintings, even though I've was lazy with the rendering. And yes, it's supposed to hang that way.

2008

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>>17403351
This is a perfect example of how I've brough laziness into my work as an integral part. Never finished it before I found a buyer.

2013

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>>17403351
This is a commissioned work. I enjoy doing more realistic stuff every now and again, to train my eyes and hands.

2014

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>>17403351
Here's another realistic one, but this one wasn't commissioned.

2007

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>>17403789
Fucking phone sometimes turns my images around, so sorry for that

>>17403351
last one inb4 samefagging too much

Early 2012

>>17403806
Got to say I'm impressed bit I'm also not an artist.
Maybe you should just sit down and start drawing something about how you feel.
Or something that you just vaguely remeber from a dream if you know what I mean.
Just something you have a vague image of in your mind.

>>17403718
This is pretty fucking cool, anon.

I have no advice, I just think this is cool.

>>17403993
Cheers, yeah that's good and all. It's not really that I haven't got ideas for paintings, it's just that ideas in my head are already ...done. As soon as I form images in my mind I feel like reproducing them in paint seem redundant somehow. This lead me to start to only paint non-figuratively in the years between 2008-2013, and ever since then I haven't really painted regularly. Whenever I've done any work in the years since, it's always been intensely in short periods, and then months and months without any inspiration. I guess you can call it project based group painting, but I'd like to get back into a more steady pace with individual pieces.

For some reason it's easier to start a painting if I'm painting someone else's ideas. That's what I'm asking. What are YOUR feelings and dreams that you'd like to see up on a canvas anon?

cool paintings op!

now, i really enjoy seeing artists who can accept that even a painting with nice colora can be good, without it having a deep and depressing story behind it. its just the same like when pepsi releases a 24 page pdf on how they came up with their new logo by studying the solar system, like wtf

however it's also important to stay focused and not be intimidated by the fact that youve reached some technical plateu in your painting. im not saying its like that, but if thats why youre bored of doing something youre great at, then perhaps its worth thinking twice about whether you should really leave something that apparently generates income for something that doesnt.

money isnt all, but money equals freedom for sure. i love programming and have done a shit ton of boring websites because its still a good pay for easy work. when i graduate i will do whatever it takes to land a job that fulfills me on an emotional level as well (not only financial), but 'til then...

>>17404004
Thanks for saying. That particular kind of painting has actually been in my mind lately, and I think I'd like to more.

>>17404014
Posting from my phone so beware
If you just want ideas for a painting I can provide:
One of the most menorable images from my childhood is just a little shed at the top of a small hill wit a path leading directly to the front door
At the beginning of that path is al kid standing next to a wolf or big dog slowly making their way up there
The whole scene is sorrounded by a thick forest
Hope this helps

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>>17404028
Based suggestion.

That's the thing though, most of the paintings I've done in recent years aren't something that a lot of people respond to. I love them myself, but as I've grown as an artist the less I carn about what the picture represent, and the more I'm focused on how the paint is being handled.

Pic related, 2014. I love this painting, but my taste might be way off most other people's, so i don't expect to sell it any time soon.

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>>17404033
Haha, sheds and woods are two of my most reoccurring subjects overall. This is the closest I get from what I got on my phone.

Thanks for the story fami

>>17404063
Thanks for the pic
But I really like that artstyle too
Maybe you could really just draw how you feel: without ideas, an empty head or something?

>>17404085
Empty head for me means I'm already content with what is, and there's no need to make change.

Why paint then?

>>17404388
I don't know to be honest
But maybe look at it like that:
You can fill that head with anything you like
Both in the painting and in real life

>>17404418
Sure, but again, I don't really care what I paint. When I paint I'm concerned about composition, balance, physical gestures, viscosity, tactility, phenomenological perception.

Maybe I should just paint internet memes and see if that does anything. Anyway, my point is that it should come from other people. I know I CAN paint whatever I fill me head and canvas with, but if I do that truthfully, it comes out completely non-representational.

This thread was an attempt to hear what other people feel is important.

>>17406033
What do you mean by "what others think is important"?
Art doesn't always have to be methaphorical. I even think that's pretty autistic.
Like reading i to every word of a book. No, the author didn't mean to imply that the protagonist feels worn out because the water looked pale. The water just fucking looked pale!

You could try to paint something for the sake of paiting, not to bring a message across. The mona lisa took a very long time to get finished because the technique just took it's time and probably due to lack of interest and enthusiasm. I also think people are so stunned by it because it has no deeper meaning. They desperately try to inflict one on it and that makes it so interesting. It keeps them hooked.They think they just don't "get it" whilst there's nothing there to "get". It's just a portrait of an average girl smiling awkwardly. But they like to pretend they "get it" and pay heaps to just take a look at it to appear smart and sophisticated. Just paint to show off your skills and let the idiots inflict their interpretation on it witheout ever clearing it up to drive them nuts.

>>17406074
Yes, that's exactly it. If I wanted to tell stories I'd write a book - I'm in fact getting published next summer.

Paintings are things to look at. Like flowers.

However, paintings do have an imageness to them - they're not only physical objects - that duality is what I find interesting with the medium, and what one chooses to paint must be generated somehow. Part of my method is asking others. I'd like to use anon as a random generator, if you like.

But everything you wrote is true. The way paintings look are their meaning. Everything else is projection, and tbqh I couldn't give a flying fuck about metaphor.

>>17406091
Yes, they are dual. But defining that duality by naming a painting or even give an explanation just makes it dull. Let everyone project their own "meaning" on it. You can paint whatever and it strikes a chord in someone. That why i think trying to make "meaningfull" art is menacial and you should rather focus on technique. I mean, instead of making a piece about death and suffering, try to perfect your remdering and anatomival proportions in an aesthetically pleasing way on an interesting subject. Make it unexpected, it will tickle peoples thirst to imply stuff on it.

I can give you your random anon ideas. I once had a dream about a huge sphere floating in open air. It was completely covered in moss and there where perfectly white champignons sprouting out of it ina aymetrical pattern. and single lavender flowers. It was surreal af but somehow stuck with me and i would love to see how it looks as a piece of art.

Now, you could rapidly start the implications. Lavender is calming whilst the witch circle underneath the ground that mushrooms grow could stand for how everything is interwoven or "tip of the iceberg" or whatever. It's silly because it's just a floating moss ball, but people would suckit up

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>>17406135
Okay cool, I can dig that imagery.

I'm not sure how else to put it, but again, I don't care at all about literal interpretation when I create or look at paintings. I stopped doing that more than a decade ago, so idk why you keep telling me to stop placing meaning on my work.

Whenever I choose motifs to paint, I usually go by free association. I look at what I already got going, and I ask myself 'what if?' If it works technically, compositionally, etc., it stays in the painting. I do not ever question its purpose. The technique IS the purpose. To look at it IS its intent and meaning.

But I wish to paint figuratively. When I do, I'm restricted in ways that makes me a better artists. I just don't care to think about what to paint, and so it usually ends up in some sort of concave alien dreamscape.

Your idea sounds like it would fit right in

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>>17406449
So you just need freaky inspiration? I reccomend /b/ and /x/. Why don't you paint surreal gore? I'd buy that...

Paint pop culture icons. Those always sell.

>>17403718
That's fucking cool man. I'd buy it. If that's the normal quality of stuff you do, go for it. I've seen people sell stuff nowhere near as good as that.

>>17402364
Just keep doing your thing. Make a page on a social media site for your art. People will come to you and doors will start to open.

Stop baiting for compliments and validation.
Get some actual self-esteem.

>>17406539
This is a logical fallacy. If they were baiting for compliments, that means they would have to know their work was good, and this would have confidence in their work and themselves.

>>17406539
>>17406545
OP here. I've been complimented for my drawings and paintings ever since I was four years old, and consciously knew I lived doing it. I was best in class at drawing all through primary school, and superior at painting through secondary school. My high school commissioned a mural painting after I finish. When I applied for my BA in Fine Art I only applied at one school, because I knew my work was good enough to get me in, and it turned out I was the only student in my class that got right in without having to undergo a formal interview. By the time I was finishing my third year I had three different studios, just so I could get all the work I wanted done, which was unheard of, and I was offered the best spot in our graduation show. I sold my largest canvas to the school's architect and several of my tutors bought my smaller work.

I assure you, I know my work is good, I've heard it all my life and I don't need anybody's compliments - in fact, like I said earlier, I hate getting praise. I can't to much with a compliment. It's like telling someone there's nothing to improve, nothing more to do. And I guess that's part of the reason I'm here. I want a reason, and I believe that doing stuff that doesn't originate in my own mind will provide me with the unfamiliar ground, where I actually need to give a fuck in order to achieve anything good.

>>17406500
Yes, this is the type of advice I was looking for.

Problem is I'm not really sure it's a good idea to keep spreading horror in the world. Would it improve your mental health to stare at disfigured bodies all day?

Not saying it wouldn't, just questioning.

>>17406502
You're not wrong, but I don't want to contribute to idolisation. I want to create my own gods. Hollywood is bad for you, famalam.

>I enjoy doing more realistic stuff every now and again, to train my eyes and hands.
>But I wish to paint figuratively. When I do, I'm restricted in ways that makes me a better artists.
>I want to create my own gods.

Why don't you seriously devote yourself to figurative portrait painting? Why are you not doing it more?

>>17406074
>>17406091
>>17406135
Just because there is no direct symbolism in a painting doesn't mean there isn't some intended message the artist wants to communicate.
Just painting for showing of your skill and techniques is what makes art uninteresting and shallow for me at least.

when i look at "Wheatfield with Crows" by van Gogh for example, i can feel the feeling he wanted to convey or express. You can see the manic and anxious state he was in because of the stark contrasts on crude brushstrokes he chose to use. I can connect with artist through his art on he whole new level because he communicates his emotions directly. His art helps to shatter the boundaries that isolate us because he is making me experience his emotions, making his work transcendental. i know that this is all highly subjective but this is what makes art beautiful to me, the things you can't put into words can be expressed through it.

I don't know but most of your work just seems so random. sure it's a cool effect to fracture your painting onto several canvases, but it doesn't add much to the artwork or anything new to art itself.
I can't really make out your voice. you work seems like the work of 6 different artists.
It doesn't matter what people want to see more of, what matters is what you want people to see. How does your work represent you as a person? what does it say about the human condition, Reality, Or art itself etc.

Of course art can be whatever you want it to be and there are different lines of thought. that's another thing that's great about it to me, it can't be good or bad. Your message could be to have no message but i don't get that from your work either, to me it seems rather like something that pretends to have a message.

Those are my incoherent thoughts at least, i'm no art historian. You definitely are talented, just the notion of painting just to show off skill got me riled up

>>17402364
OP, read the "Manual Of Painting and Caligraphy" by Saramago, the reflextions of a painter who is 90% just like you. It's slow but some answers could be found.

Whether it be the fear of success or the fear of failure or fear at all, it needs to be embraced if you are to move on from where you are now. Nothing else will change things, not new ideas, not old ideas.

You seem to be nowhere. Neither a businessman or an artist loving their craft. Success, money or fear shouldn't be your priority. Making good art should be.
Fearing failure or success when you are nowhere close to either is like a homeless man fearing he might lose his house. There's a time and a place for everything and the only thing that is important is to do what you want. If your work is that important to you it will translate into being important to others.

>>17406783
>Why don't you seriously devote yourself
Only because figurative portrait painting isn't the only thing I'm interested in doing.

>>17406786
>I can't really make out your voice. you work seems like the work of 6 different artists.
For years I've been having exactly this in mind. I even got names for the different artists, but I've haven't actually used them as pseudonyms yet. I'm only starting to know them, but I got a couple nailed down already.
Your post is appreciated, and I do agree. When I said that I dont care about metaphor and meaning,, I was talking about narrative and hidden representation. Obviously, if I paint a scene or landscape I want the notion of atmosphere or sense of space to be present. I'm still reluctant to talk about feeling, other than phenomenological - like the feeling of standing high up looking down at something, as an example.

I did mention the abject in my OP, and certainly that'll provide you with some notion - but this applies more to my installations/sculpture than my paintings.

>>17406822
Looking into it, cheers.

>>17406824
>Success, money or fear shouldn't be your priority. Making good art should be.
Well put

>like a homeless man fearing he might lose his house
yfw I've been homeless for four years, sleeping in my studio.

Based post mate

once I get back into painting again, I'm going to go back to trying to paint things that make people think about themselves. gonna try to do it in a subtle way. I like making mysterious paintings. though sometimes I just like to explore an idea.

it's very hard not to feel an "everything has been done to death already, what's the point" feeling. the big push this past century or 2 seems to have been to come up with something nobody else has done. I think that's one reason there's so much bad, weird, opaque, pretentious art - people trying to do something different for the sake of being different because that's how you get noticed. maybe the real focus should be to pick 1 or 2 areas of focus and do them extremely well, regardless of how much they've been done. that's what I plan on doing, but it's hard to let go of the old art school mindset.

>>17406824
>Fearing failure or success when you are nowhere close to either is like a homeless man fearing he might lose his house.
not OP but holy shit you just told the story of my life. I worry about too much shit that hasn't happened yet, just because it might. I know I get it from my mom but I've been an adult long enough that you'd think I'd have fixed it by now. sometimes if I can channel it into planning ahead, it works out. but mostly I just end up spinning my wheels. it's really pervasive to the point where my therapist kinda suspects I am just making up things to be anxious about. but I'm not, at least I sure hope I'm not. I'm not doing it consciously, I know.

just throwing that out in case anybody else out there can relate. also I am >>17407184

sorry if I hijacked your thread at all OP, I feel your struggle artbro

>>17407184
>>17407197
Don't apologise mate, glad to hear fellow artists share their story. And I can relate, but I've reached the age where I'm no longer that fuzzed about any potential success. If it comes it comes, but if it doesn't it doesn't matter since I'm not really that obsessed with the distinction between discursive conceptualism and plain old sunday painting. Obviously there's always possible to make a living off what we create, but you don't have to have an formal education in order to do it - and in fact, I think it's easier for outsiders/amateaurs to be successful, since they're not so painfully aware of how incredibly narrow the slit that leads to your Saatchis and Gargosians is. For many years after I graduated I felt ashamed being an artist, even though I've always been praised for my work, because I knew it was nowhere as good as I expected of myself. Now however, I don't care and sometimes I'm thinking about just starting up a brand of birdhouses of my own design.

>everything has been done to death already, what's the point
Picasso stole others' idea more than any, and went and did it better.

The way I see it art isn't a competition, it's a communal project, we're in it together everyone of us. Decades ago Joseph Beuys famously said that 'Everything is sculpture. Everyone's an artist,' as he talked about the art than went into delivering newborns.
We live in a world that has an exponential amount of images being created - instagram, snapchat, mobile screencaps og pokemon go - and it's more and more common for ordinary people to create images. A little more than half a century ago it was uncommon for families to own their own cameras - and it was unlikely that one family had more than the one - I'm visiting my parents as we speak, and I can count at least 12 cameras just in the room we're sitting in. Human beings have created images for tens of thousands of years, and there's a reason for it, whether you see any point or not.

>>17407184
btw, forgot to ask, do youl mind posting any previous work of yours?