Sincerity in Art

Bruna Massadas, Studio Model (A Charcoal Drawing a Day Project), 2012.  Charcoal on paper, 14 X 17 inches.

What is my process of making work? Why do I choose this process? And, most importantly, why do I make work? In graduate school, I had the opportunity to experience different approaches to art and see how other artists relate to their work. This exposure stimulated questions about my process.

At first, while in graduate school, I was doing what I thought I was supposed to do: make art with my head. I made artworks as assignments, which others would check on to determine how well I was communicating a specific idea. This mode of art making relied heavily on explanations and research. The truth is I was neither good at those things nor liked making art this way. At the end of my first year of graduate school, I reacted against that. It was now all about the gut. The gut, however, implies a violence that I am not interested in. YES! POWER! CONTROL! AWARENESS! And what now? Do I want art making to be a reaction to something? It was still about the head since it was a reaction to it.

The problem to me was neither the head nor the gut. The problem was I was making art with the same unfulfilling purpose—to build a reputation (as an academic who makes art or a badass who makes art against something). I was more concerned about how others saw me than how I was experiencing the work. 

Lately I have been making a charcoal drawing a day and painting occasionally. No one comes into my studio but flies. My drawings are of things that happen everyday. There is absolutely nothing else to them than what you see. There is so much beauty in that.