Originality or Uniqueness?
“Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.” ― Allen Ginsberg
No artist can be completely original, we all learn from different people, we get influenced by different people and we draw inspiration from many others. So in such a world trying to be original is just a futile exercise. What we should do instead is trying to be unique.
So what’s the difference between being original and being unique?
Originality means building each and every block of your art from scratch, but that is very rare to happen. On the other hand, uniqueness means using a combination of original and derived elements and coming up with a new arrangement. If you look at most of the greatest artworks, whether it be paintings, writings, music or anything else, you will find that they aren’t something completely new, they are just a unique arrangement of a combination of some previously existing elements and some elements originally created by the artist.
No one can be completely original and interesting at the same time. It’s just a matter of taking what already exists and then adding your own tone and getting them set up in a new and unique arrangement.
This is where the importance of self-expression becomes important. The easiest and the best way to be unique is to be yourself.
If you want to create artworks that stand out from the rest, express yourself through your art.
You don’t have to try so hard to be perfectly original, that will never happen. You just have to see things from your own — unique — perspective, and then just express it through your art. Once you do that uniqueness will follow.
This fact is clearly evident if you look at the paintings of Pablo Picasso, they are clearly autobiographical. He combines his views, thoughts, and situations into his art, and the outcome is absolutely hilarious: one of the most unique bodies of work ever created by an artist. His paintings speak more words than anything else.
So always keep in mind, it’s not a race for originality. You can never — perfectly — attain originality, so don’t waste your time chasing it. Focus on uniqueness instead.
This post originally appeared on TheResonantVoice.com and was written by Niranjanan Prajith.
