3: Hagler and Personal Symbolism
[Click image to see on artist's site.]
Elana Hagler
Witnessing (recent years but date unknown)Oil on panel, w16" x h20"
From ElanaHagler.com
Keeping it simple today, with a work by an artist who was actually an adviser during my senior art project. Didn't get to work with her much, which was a shame, but I've enjoyed looking at her work after the fact to see how it ticks.
So we've looked at some of the most traditional types of symbolism found in still life painting — big-picture doom and gloom stuff about human mortality, basically. But over time, still life has fractured into something more more individualized. Instead of being about the human condition full stop, a work these days may instead focus in on one person, one place, one story or one personal reflection. And instead of using universal visual cues (the hourglass or skull, for instance), the objects in the picture might include items of personal significance to the artist, giving the work an autobiographical bent.
A still life painting done this way can still have universal themes to it, but that universality is grounded in (and actually comes from) all those individual specifics.