Hint of Color : At Work

BFA Thesis Statement

I aspire to create drawings of a hyper-realistic nature. My BFA is a study of other artists’ processes in order to further understand and refine my own. Over the past year, I have studied famous artists from the past and conducted interviews with several working artists in order to answer important questions about why I do what I do. The most prevalent of which is, why photorealism?

 In the end, I wasn’t able to find an answer to many of my questions. To make matters worse, while I discovered that some artists use emotional, social, and/or political subjects to drive their work; there isn’t some grand theme I love, some great story I wish to tell, or some injustice I wish to right. But maybe I don’t need one. I learned that not every great story is long, not every artist is trying to end poverty. 

When studying the artistic processes of my peers, I discovered there wasn't always some grand unifying theme or mission. People create beautiful things for several reasons, but above all, they do it for the sake of creating. Maybe I’ve been asking the wrong question because at the end of the day, photos can tell stories just as fantastic as paintings. If you Google image search “Amazing photos,” you’ll find tons of images you’ll want to look at despite not being drawings or paintings. So maybe the question isn’t, “why would someone choose my image over a photo?” and maybe I should be asking, “Why would someone want your image, even if it was just a photo?”