BRUSHSTROKES
DATELINE HOLLYWOOD
January 29, 2020
REEL TALK
January 30, 2020
Breazy Boone’s free spirit
Too often, artists are pressured into finding their ‘voice’ and sticking to it. The pressure generally comes from society’s generic and somewhat binary understanding of identity. For instance, females need to dress and behave in a certain way in order to be identified as feminine.
The uniformity and consistency of these expectations across all females is necessary in order to maintain society’s compartmentalised under-standing of who a female ought to be.
Similarly, artist identities are also compartmentalised. For example, Pablo Picasso is known for cubism, Georgia O’Keeffe for her zoomed in paintings of flowers and Tim Burton for his lanky gothic characters. They each have a signature style, which fuels and compartmentalises their identities as artists.
Perhaps the art world needs to be as appreciative of those who choose and enjoy a less traditional route to artistic stardom. With modern so-ciety being more welcoming of the diversity of human identity, perhaps it’s time to do the same for creative identity.
We hear plenty about artists who have found their trademark; but very little about artists who are either in the process of finding their forever home or are comfortable travelling across styles and genres.
The work of Austin based artist Breanna Boone who goes by the name ‘Breazy’ is a perfect example of a travelling artist. Although she is a highly talented artist whose work is saturated with technique and meaning, Breazy will be the first to humbly admit that her work has no stylis-tic or thematic commonalities.
Her portfolio is bountiful in colour stories, symbolism, style and technique but in no way is there a trademark feature that cohesively braids her work together. In fact, each piece looks like it is completed by a different artist. However, there’s a beauty to be recognised and appreciated in Breazy’s self-identified lack of a signature. There is as much fragility as there is boldness in this malleable identity.
Breazy is known for unintentionally producing work in threes. She immerses herself in a particular subject matter, begins creating pieces around it and as though it was planned, moves on to something completely different by the completion of the third piece.
Her reason for having a travelling identity ultimately boils down to boredom. Once an idea has been exhausted, she is bored and ready to move on to the next artistic adventure. What we as a society fail to recognise is that artists aren’t obliged to build a forever home. Instead, like Breazy, they have the freedom to travel and set up or move camp as they please.
This portfolio is a reflection of what it means to be a traveller. On the one hand, much like the artefact filled home of an obsessive traveller, Breazy’s work is a hotchpotch of eclectic artwork from very different points of origin, each with equally thought-provoking but vastly different stories.
On the other hand, Breazy’s work is also a reflection of her love for travel itself and mimics the attractions that draw her to her favourite desti-nations. Having recently returned from Oaxaca in Mexico, Breazy was quite impressed by its Day of the Dead festivities. She remains in awe of the Mexican culture’s more positive and celebratory outlook on death, which is reminiscent even in their ornate gravestones.
Staying with the theme of death, she hopes to one day explore Kyoto for the annual Yōkai (monster) festival, catacombs of Rome and home of Halloween in Ireland.
Many highly talented artists are stifled by society’s expectation that they must find a forever home. But instead of producing work that follows a certain style or genre for the entirety of an artistic career, Breazy sustains her passion for painting and drawing by exploring the limitless varie-ty of styles and genres that inspire her.
She reminds us that this attraction to eclecticism can remain as invigorating and exciting, to both the artist and audience.
BY Saashya Rodrigo
