6 Oct. 2019 The conflicting discourse about form and theme

The first painting is completed. I can point out that the themes I am focused in are depicted in a degree, like the religious iconography and the concept of journey but I general the painting was a superficial approach to it. It was more like a study for what comes next.

I also started researching about my work, I pinned down some questions and possible answers that pertain to certain themes, iconographic patterns and aesthetic approaches.

Over the course of art history there is a dispute concerning two diametrically opposed points of view the aesthetic approach towards art and the iconographic approach. Generally these two views are a conflicted discourse among artist, historians and philosophers over the years.

My body of work could be described as narrative, thus in my paintings viewer can recognize resemblances between the depicting objects and reality. This reasoning indicates that the painting is firmly connected to subjects drawn by observation and consequently has particularly social and cultural context. On the contrary it is the exact opposite of an aesthetic, formalistic approach, however I sincerely believe that the constitution of formalistic attributes on a painting (like stroke, color, line) is more essential than the themes presented on it. These two clashing thoughts about my work and how I value them creates a problematic connotation around it that initially appears to be paradoxical (and it might is). Sometimes I incline towards the formalistic approach, during the creating of an piece I interpret it solemn in terms of compositional balance, nevertheless I create figures, characters and stories that derive from descriptive reality.