ANDREW ATKINSON


Artists and Exile

Artists are not in complete exile, they always need to be close enough to main springs of society and culture to be able to see it, to interact with it, and to be able to speak its native language - if not as the artist’s first language.

Total exile would result in the loss of the ability to communicate with the more populous areas of society, to draw from its well and to contribute to it. However, a degree of isolation is necessary. If it weren’t for this isolation, from the lack of a sense of place, a lot would be lost to the artist - distance from the arteries of modern life is crucial to be able to view it at all, and a good understanding of this culture is necessary for the creating artworks. If we were central to culture, there would only be somebody else to comment upon it, if we were completely outside of culture we would not be able to speak with it.

Some artists relish their peripheral nature - enjoy the distance and attach to it special significance; others simply lament it, accepting that their chosen life will insist upon a degree of Diaspora. Personally, I’ve always lived this life and it never occurred to me to live another - I never wanted to be a member of the centre of society and have always found enough ’family’ around me to able to reinforce or remind of what it is I chose to do.

Recently, some artists have changed their positions, and taken residency in the main boroughs of society and enjoy the benefits of their more central positions. The acceptability of art has brought about a great deal of interest in the arts and produced art celebrity - something that is new to living memory, although it is happened in the past and will surely happen again. It is wonderful to see art given such attention, and this new model of art - artists as cultural producers - has been remarkably successful. This model has no been without its detractors, however. Art has not in a long been so closely aligned to the main streams of culture and has not produced artifacts that resemble the main cultures so much. It seems as if there are less artists at the periphery, less speaking alternative dialects, exploring other ways of seeing the world and of living. Its is probably not true - the lights that are shining upon the now famous artists are not obscuring the lesser known ones, they are however still at the periphery and will, I imagine, continue to live their lives their regardless of any changes that occur around them.


Exile and Graphic Art

The graphic arts have typically had communities around them - the technology of print has demanded this and opens spaces dedicated to these art forms through workshops and studios. Artists working in graphic media have had to live in relation to these oases, and navigate their way around the world using these as fixed reference points in their journeys.

Graphic art does not diminish exile but it does displace the notion of exile - the exile becomes not of the individual but of the group. The communities that form around the technology are smaller pockets of individuals, who in all honesty do not necessarily relate to each other terribly well, but do share the commonality of the ateliers in which they work, providing a form of micro-society, with all its benefits and problems.

Nationhood and Exile

The exile of the artist - mostly through being in a peripheral position in society - is not the same as the exile of culture that exists when you live in another country. However, for some this is a pivotal experience, it highlights the condition that they experience in their own country but writ much larger. Exile by country is often through a lack of affinity with the actual nationality - it is as if the country did not leave its imprint on the individual notion of place. With most other things the nationality leaves its trace - in the artist’s outlook, languages, behaviors and values. But somehow the artist does not necessarily relate them to their core sense of self when they live elsewhere, the arbitrary nature of any culture becomes apparent leaves the wanderer looking for a different value system, and a lack of innocent blind belief in the idea of nations, although still wandering with the scars of a nationality.