While going to exhibition after exhibition I hear some people comment on my painting style – this is what I search for and in my opinion is that the following helps you to define it:-
1. Firstly it is qualified by how you draw – if it is in great detail and precise then your paintings could be very photogenic or with elaborate detail; if your drawing not in great detail, then your painting would also not be in great detail. If it is just clean lines then your painting will also reflect clean lines and spaces. The uniqueness of your painting could be found in the different way in which you draw.
2. The amount of colors that you use and how you use them – do you use dirty/broken colors by mixing or do you like to use “clean” paint, impasto, etc. This has a direct bearing on the brightness, contrasts, etc. etc. of your painting. Do you use it thick, thin or layers and how do you apply it with oft or bristle brushes or palette knife or other instruments?
3. I believe many will disagree with me that the subject matter that you like to paint influences your style and especially in how you interpret it or what other message you have in your subject matter, how simple or naïve or even complex it might be.
4. The fourth influence on your style of painting is your schooling or “masters” that you respect. One can clearly see some resemblances creeping in over time or there is just something that reminds you of another artist or great master.
5. A last influence is the emotional intelligence of the artist. It is very easy to “read” the personality of the artist or his emotional condition by observing his paintings. Is the artist very happy by nature or is the artist depressed, is he outgoing, does he communicate and have easy exchange with other people? One artist for example very seldom show any human beings in his paintings….Another just paint people – many people together engrossed in some activity or portraits. The emotional intelligence can also then be gleaned from observing the something more and something else in the painting.
The important factor though is to qualify your art style and to grow in it. I think a certain deliberate effort to enforce your own unique style must be made – deliberate effort and to evaluate it: put some works or photos of it next to one another and compare it.
I don’t think you have to adapt in any way if you follow the process of developing and maintaining and growing your own unique style.
In conclusion it is needed for one to from time to time experiment and play and add “new” techniques and influences to your style. Never undermine or compromise creativity and a certain artistic freedom that goes with it even if it does not look like some of your other work. Let it influence you. There are people who would copy a certain artists in subject matter and in process and only later to come back and to do their own work again; but now “influenced” and changed by that exercise. The same could be said for working with another artist or additional training etc. All these can be influences on creativity and your style.
