Postmodernist Art Piece Reflection

For the post-modernist project, I gained inspiration from artist Jean Baudrillard’s quote, “The secret of theory is that truth does not exist.”  Baudrillard’s quote moved me to abstractly create a postmodernist art piece that visually explained Baudrillard’s quote.  The background of my piece is comprised of a blue and red acrylic paint with picture cutouts from a Photoshop collage.  Both the blue and red paints start at opposite ends of the paper then gradually fade to the center where they blend into a solid white.  On the faded blue side, there are images that represent truth, and on the red side the images represent lies.  To create a focal point, I placed an image of a lightbulb in the center where both the blue and red colors morph to white.  Through a verity of postmodernist techniques such as painting, making a collage, and using words, the artwork echoes the thematic quote and transforms it into an alternative medium for an audience to value and experience. 

To fully appreciate the postmodernist art piece the audience must examine the work to gain a deeper understanding of the unseen messages on the canvas.  To conceptually demonstrate the importance of truth and lies I use blue and red colors to show general stereotypes people have towards actuality and falsehoods.  On each of the blue and red sides I passed faces looking directly at the lightbulb.  By having the faces stare into the lightbulb, they force the viewer to then too stare at the same object.  The lightbulb is a symbol of personal inquiry for the audience.  It is up to the viewer to interpret what is good and bad since both the truth and lies coiled into the lightbulb.  Through bold colors and images the postmodernist art piece allows the viewer to observe and gain a new perspective on both the beauty and decay of truths and lies.