Artist Statement

Mae Planker

American author Henry Miller once said, "An artist is always alone - if he is an artist. What the artist needs is loneliness." The inevitability for an artist to be lonely is a concept I have been exploring throughout this semester in AP Studio. What does loneliness look like? How can such an internal feeling such as isolation be represented in a physical way? Answering these questions through my art has been a functional creative outlet through which I can freely express my emotions. This year, I have shown an array of different ways loneliness can appear. I have also completed several pieces for my Selected Works, works that do not fit into my topic of being alone.

Feeling alone is something that I have struggled with as I have gotten older, for I seem to fit in less and less as I age. Although the desolation can hurt at times, I am ultimately grateful for it because, as Miller said, I believe it is what makes me an artist. Loneliness drives me to create, as if I am trying to make friends with the art. It keeps me company. This is why I chose to show my solitude throughout my Sustained Investigation; It is my friend.

The media I use as an artist is a concept that I have struggled with this year. In my earlier projects, I almost got stuck working strictly with acrylic paint on canvas; I became too comfortable using that media. However, throughout the year, I managed to push myself to try different media. I started working with materials such as watercolor and oil paint. For my Selected Works, I further pushed myself to work with materials that I had little to no experience using, such as charcoal and oil pastels. By using these different types of materials, I also learned how to push my boundaries of texture and application. My earlier works seem to possess more precise, defined shapes and borders, another aspect of my art that I was stuck doing for comfort. Throughout the year, however, I have learned to loosen up and not dwell over every little detail. This is what art does to artists: it sets us free.