I Like it, I Don't Like it

I've been trying to decide exactly why I like certain artists and not others and there doesn't seem to be any particular reasoning to it, though when I really dislike the artist personally, I almost never like their work either. For example, I can't stand Gauguin as a person because I consider him to have been an incredibly arrogant and obnoxious man and I loathe the man's paintings equally as much. Every last canvas. Even when I was a child, I couldn't stand to look at his work. But by the same token, I adore Van Gogh who was also an arrogant, obnoxious human being yet I not only feel a warm spark for who he was but love all his work as well, in spite of the fact that he routinely made basic painting errors on virtually every canvas.

Most of the time it isn't the subject matter that makes the decision for me as to whether I like the work or not, but the artist who is the deciding factor, oddly enough. One exception to this personal rule of mine would be Gustav Klimt. There is nothing particularly irritating about the artist as a man yet his work is among the most annoying I can think of (except for maybe Mary Cassatt whose work, to me at any rate, is equally irritating to behold). I've also found that even when I come to a body of work knowing little to nothing about the artist personally, the work that I find least appealing (or in many cases, downright horrible) usually ends up being by an artist I end up disliking just as much once I learn about their lives.

Apparently for me, the person who has created the work is equally as important as the work itself. I'm not sure why this is so important a factor for me, but it obviously is. For some people, the artist and their work can be seen as separate entities, whereas for me, they are intimately entwined. I guess in my mind, an ugly soul makes ugly art. I'm still trying to work out why, exactly, I feel this way.


Self Portrait, graphite on handmade paper, digitally altered to halftone, 2008.