My Concept of Art

I'm gonna try to do something really difficult here: try to describe what art is to me.

I remember when I was 19 years old (year 2002). I was confused about which Bachelor's degree I would choose. At that time, choosing a college was the defining moment of a career's life, like that was the only chance to have a successful carrer. At least in the enviroment around me. You had to finish by the age of 22 or 23, with good grades and without failing. I was torn between Advertising and Filmmaking. Between having money (the first one) or my passion. I'm not saying that you won't have money if you go into Film School. I'm just saying that I was more likely to have "financial stability" if I chose Advertising. So Advertising it was. The pressure was really high at that time, and I was very immature.

I started learning Graphic Design all by myself when I was 18. Someone told me about Corel Draw (for those who don't know, it's a vector graphics editor used to create logos, illustrations, layouts and designs, similar to Adobe Illustrator). And I practiced, practiced and practiced. It was a beautiful feeling: creating something from nothing. But I was already focused on creating advertising work. Then, I learned Photoshop, Illustrator, the list goes on.

To make a long story short, I always tried to create something unique, but I always needed my client’s approval. So, from the age of 19 to 40, I had successes and failures in this area. Successes because I learned about how Advertising works (and how to be protected from its influence, if that is possible) and failures because I had a lot of frustration. The positive feeling of the urgent need to create what I really wanted was suprassed by the negative feeling that approval would never come if I did it. That’s when I had a kind of burnout. I couldn’t create anything anymore. I canceled the Adobe softwares and gave up on this profession. But the feeling of creating was still there.

So I started creating one day, after a few weeks, and I had no idea what I was going to do. Instead of using rational advertising techniques, the only thing that was guiding the creation were my emotions. Instead of vibrant advertising colors (used to create a psychological effect on the viewer), black and white took over. And it was so beautiful. It's like the ultimate contrast. Like a black and white image of tree branches with a white sky in the background.

It's an opposite direction. Advertising works from the outside in. And art (or my concept of art) works from the inside out. Art must be a personal form of expression, in my opinion. In basic terms, it is the materialization of an emotion, based on personal life experience, human values, notions of right and wrong, etc. And the artist is someone who is very sensitive about his (or her) external world and he (or she) has a strong need to externalize the emotion in the moment in an art form (a song, a written poem, a painting, a photograph or anything that can be felt by any other human being).

This concept of art can and probably will change in the future. I am simply expressing my thoughts today (March 20, 2025). I am not trying to win a debate about the concept of art or trying to make people believe in what I believe. This site is my "world", where I can express what I feel or think. No social media algorithms and no people-pleasing. But it's not a selfish "world". Comments are allowed and welcome here. If you have read this far, all I have to say is: Thank you.