Our very first guest Burn Blog post comes from three incredible artists in our community. Gauri Bansal, Auric Hout and Pushpa Javaji have each written on how culture influences art.
Have a read, and be sure to give these artists a follow.
How does your culture influence your art?
Gauri Bansal
WHAT MAKES YOUR ART?
Have you ever asked yourself, why is your art what it is? Your style, your signature design, that one element which invariably shows up in almost every piece you make. Where did that come from?
Mine it turns out, comes from my roots in Indian culture. I am realizing how heavily my art is intertwined around what impacted me as a child. My first instinct is always to incorporate a henna or mandala design into anything I create.
That realization made me look more closely at other artists’ work. And I have come to strongly believe that artists take inspiration from and rely very heavily on their culture. There are modifications and interpretations, however the first thought that inspires a piece is mostly rooted in cultural and social traditions. Before discovering pyrography, I explored other mediums like candle making, candle holder making with Plaster of Paris and many other platforms. In all when it came to design, I gravitated towards henna patterns. It came naturally. There was/is no stressing my mind and my hand what feels like guides itself to make the motifs. Now I understand when another creator says, “Oh! It just comes to me”.
Two separate artists raised in same culture will still have their own style and that is the result of their perception. There are many factors attributing to how an artists’ perceives his/her culture. Factors like (not limited to) race, gender, ethnicity etc. Let your art flow out from you. Forced art is rarely outstanding or satisfying. Best work is one that comes from the heart and the artists feel a connection to. Art is about putting passion in your work. In my experience and humble opinion one can, be passionate only if they can relate to the concept.
I can go on and on, give you plethora of examples and find quotes to support what my belief, but I think you get the picture. Go fall into your passion and embrace it.
I would love to share our passions. Maybe combine our “cultures” and create a stunning piece.
Gauri Bansal
Art! Culture!
Most of us don’t think about them in daily life and definitely not how they impact us. Many of us don't even relate to either of them, I didn’t, but find they are integral part of our lives. Both are always influencing us in ways unknown to us.
Let's talk about Art.
We are constantly surrounded by it. Whether it's a painting, music, movie or sculpture, they all have a huge impact on our mood and emotions. All kinds of art can affect us in all kinds of ways, most importantly a positive way, making us feel happier, calmer or even inspired to do something. Everywhere we go art is evident. It allows and motivates us to see things in a different perspective.
Moving on to Culture.
Simply put, it is the way of life for a group of people, that we call society. The outlook, attitude, values, morals, goals, and customs shared by a society all together form a culture. At least that’s what my take is on it.
When put together, art and culture have the ability to generate empathy, stir up dialogue, induce reflection, charter new relationships and bring up new ideas. It’s this interrelationship that creates interesting pieces. Our thoughts revolve around our culture and are translated in whatever art we create. All of this does not by any means state that artists within one culture will create same art. It does however explain similarities in thought process. An artists’ individuality and their exposure to different environment also plays a role. This is how an artist’s style is born and individuals attempting to create same landscapes, objects or any kind of work still manage to come up with different pieces than their peers.
For me: looking back I realize how huge of an influence Hindu culture has on my work.
Whenever I get a thought or a prompt, my instinct circles around Hindu mythology, it is my culture and surrounds me all the time. It has influenced almost all of my work. Hindus are a spiritual society thus my most of my work stems from that background. The figures don't look like God/ Goddess, but my story or thoughts include them. Even in calligraphy work my first thought is to write a sanskrit slok (ancient scripture), in fact that's the only calligraphy I have done. Check it out. My one and only calligraphy and some other examples of my “cultural” work.
My one and only calligraphy art:
Presenting Goddess Lakshmi (goddess of wealth) with "MELANGE" of emotions
Welcome Lord Shiva as "Anagha" (the faultless)
Auric Hout
When I was asked about the impact culture has had on my art, I looked back to the start of my journey with Pyrography in 2017. I realized that I relied heavily on my Indian roots and Hindu culture for inspiration. Staring at a blank piece of wood, the most obvious ideas that would come to mind were the mandalas, rangolis, henna, or concepts like OM, yoga and mythology. That’s because your culture inspires your art and your art reflects your culture.
As an artist, my purpose is to communicate an idea, an emotion or a thought through my work. As a cultural ambassador, I want my art to inspire, connect and collaborate with other people and cultures. My experimental collaboration with another artist to blend two different halves into a harmonious unison is a perfect example of this idea:
Just like music, art is universal and transcends all boundaries. Culture is just the language that the artist uses to express his/her thoughts. I can clearly see how culture has influenced the art I have created so far. I would like to specially mention the #burntday and #burntmonth challenges that have helped me to push my boundaries and think outside the box and showcase the various influences I have had.
This has been an exciting journey so far and I am looking forward to many more adventures along the way.
Pushpa Javaji