Follow-Up
Ok, so this is a follow up on the previous post about art with meaning. Specifically contemporary art with meaning. There are a lot of different modern-day artists who create artwork that has metaphorical meaning. Two examples are Duy Huynh and Banksy (the graffiti artist).
Duy Huynh
Duy Huynh is a Vietnamese born artist who moved to America in the 80s as a child. Because of this themes of geographical and cultural displacement often appear in his artwork. He started out doing graffiti and drawing comic characters when he was young. He considers his first commission to be in 3rd grade when he drew Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for $2 and chocolate milk for the week. Huynh "attempts to literally and symbolically connect nature/wildlife with human aspirations" (in other words he likes to connect wildlife and nature with human thoughts, feelings, and actions). He does mostly acrylic paintings, and gets inspiration from comics to folklore to music and movies! Below is some of his artwork.
To learn more about him see here.
To learn more about him see here.
Banksy
Banksy's work is much different than that of Duy Huynh. For one thing-no on really knows his identity. He's a graffiti artist so he expresses his opinions straight onto the walls society. He usually uses stencils to paint his artwork together on the buildings and walls he works on. Some people might say that graffiti isn't artwork, but I would have to disagree. While it may not be extremely polite to put artwork on other's buildings, that may be the point altogether. To show how society views free art on wall, is priceless. The artwork may also be purposely rebellious to show general rebel spirit. Usually Banksy uses a tag to sign his artwork. This is like a graffiti signature in the corner of the artwork, but not just a signature, a nickname. Banksy is fairly famous and he often makes his art about politics or world problems. Which means that his artwork has meaning too. There's some of his artwork below.
See a video of Banksy in action here.
See a video of Banksy in action here.