What does it mean to be an artist?
I can only answer for myself—being an artist composes of constantly absorbing, observing, and reacting to my internal and external worlds and then morphing that source material into something that is entirely outside of myself. Although artmaking is deeply personal, it is important that the work is distanced from me in order to function as an autonomous entity. There is a point in the making process at which I, as an artist, am mastered by the piece and I only exist to serve its needs. An artist could be defined as one who has such a relationship with their work.
What is the function of art?
Art as a category is functionless. Having a function implies some sort of inherent motive or reason for existence. However, art can do many things—change our perceptions, call for political action, improve a community, represent a culture, make us feel a range of emotions from outraged to enamoured. Art can be used as a tool to fulfill a means or simply exist in a space. These roles exist solely as possibilities and not expectations, which is why I would argue that art is functionless.
What is more important to you — the result or the process?
The result and the process are two inseparable terms for me, or rather the result is a part of my process. I rarely find myself completely finished from work; even if I can no longer physically change the result of my labor, I continue to understand the work in repeatedly shifting ways. Certain finished pieces will spontaneously pop up in my mind as I am creating. Finished works act as additions to a library which I can reference and reinterpret as needed. Even works that feel detached from my overall practice often find themselves in conversation with the rest of my oeuvre and serve as potential solutions to questions I often ask in my practice—how can I abstract the social or how can I transform a commonplace material into a complex bodily surface for the organism that is my sculpture? I would thus say that the process is more important to me.
Do you label yourself as an artist?
Yes, I do. Accepting this label has been a result of increasing confidence in my work and in my own identity. As a student, I could avoid the label—I was not an artist but a Visual Arts major. My work answers to homework prompts. The stakes for making good work were very low. However, as I invested more of myself into my work, the stakes felt raised despite nothing else having changed. At the end of my undergraduate courses, my expectations for my work rose from making good student work to making good artwork. It was at this moment in which I routinely and comfortably could refer to myself as an artist. Now, as an artist without attachment to an institution and with no real artistic obligations, I continue to be driven by my reflexive expectations. That my drive has not evaporated with the disappearance of these obligations has solidified my identity as an artist.
Nicole Cherry
nicolecherryart.com
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Nicole Cherry was an Exhibiting Artist in AnySquared’s Fall 2014 Because Art Exhibition.
