Here are 10 tips for artists who want to make their work feel more existential, emphasizing themes like meaning, absurdity, mortality, isolation, and freedom:

  1. Confront Mortality Visually
    Introduce subtle or symbolic references to death—withered flowers, empty chairs, fading light, old hands, etc.—to evoke impermanence and the inevitability of death.
  2. Depict Solitude Instead of Loneliness
    Paint solitary figures not as tragic but as self-aware, reflecting the existential idea that solitude is the price—and privilege—of individual freedom.
  3. Use Ambiguous Settings
    Avoid clear time or place markers. Deserted interiors, dreamlike landscapes, or vague cityscapes can heighten the sense of dislocation and existential estrangement.
  4. Express the Absurd Through Juxtaposition
    Pair incongruent elements—a suited man standing in a swamp, a child holding an hourglass—to capture the absurdity of human attempts at meaning-making.
  5. Work with Limited or Stark Color Palettes
    Monochromes, desaturated tones, and contrasts between light and shadow can reinforce themes of seriousness, melancholy, or existential tension.
  6. Focus on the Gaze
    Give subjects inward-looking or ambiguous expressions. Are they searching? Resigned? These choices invite the viewer into the mystery of their inner life.
  7. Embrace Imperfection and Process
    Let brushstrokes, drips, or partially unfinished areas show. This echoes the existential idea that meaning is created in process, not achieved as perfection.
  8. Incorporate Emptiness and Negative Space
    Use blank areas intentionally. Emptiness can be as meaningful as what is depicted—suggesting absence, silence, or the void.
  9. Allow Symbols to Remain Unresolved
    Resist neat symbolism. Let objects or settings carry multiple or contradictory meanings to mirror the complexity of existence.
  10. Explore the Human Condition without Sentimentality
    Paint ordinary people in ordinary postures—waiting, sitting, thinking, aging—but do it without cliché or romanticism. Show being, not drama.

 

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