Fur In The Paint

So I’ve been watching the Work Of Art reality competition series and for the most part enjoying it. I tend to roll my eyes a bit at the judges from time to time but I’m really enjoying the show on the whole. After the second week I realized there could be some actual artist life lessons to be learned here. So for the benefit of those who aren’t or can’t watch, here they are.

Week 1. was a portrait challenge where the artists had to do portraits of each other. I must say I was impressed with many of the artist’s work.

THE LESSON: When asked for a portrait don’t create a wall paper design.

Week 2. The premise for this challenge was to create ART from an electronics garbage dump. Old computers and miscellaneous stuffs. While I thought some work was interesting. What intrigued me the most was those who had an extensive story to go with their art, did well. Even if what they were selling was bookended between two concrete anuses the size of bean bag chairs. (true story)

THE LESSON: If you create a good and believable story you can sell just about anything as art.

Week 3. The most recent challenge was to create a book cover for one of six classic novels. The novel for each artist was assigned through drawing tubes of paint. This seemed like it would have been a real fun challenge to do.The winner actually got their cover on the book.

THE LESSON: This episode has two.
1. While sex sells it doesn’t necessarily impress the judges (especially for a Jane Austen cover.)
2. If you can’t work under someone else’s parameter and consider yourself above making commercial work, then don’t join a reality art competition show.

Tags: TV

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