I read of an artist recently on social media who stated that he had never studied the work of others and never went to exhibitions so as to maintain a state of purity wherein he could produce completely original work. He was naïve, to say the least. To think that he hadn’t been influenced by any aspect of art or art history is an impossibility. He was using a rectangular canvas, applying paint to its surface, using elements of composition, colour harmony and tonality to say nothing of the very idea of self-expression through art – all characteristics of what is recognisably art in the Western Tradition. So, what in the end was he claiming?

Much has been written about the idea of originality in art but in the end just what does ‘originality’ mean? Before the 20^th century it wasn’t a term much considered. Artist studios were places where apprentices went to learn from the master and with the advent of Art Schools, nothing much changed. The cult of originality is a 20^th century obsession and yet it ignores or neglects that much great art was produced within the western tradition using traditional techniques.

Art has been flirting with the idea of nihilism for at least a century now. Picasso, Duchamp and Dada among others can take the blame. Art as a symbol of revolution is nothing new and every generation after the advent of modernism believed that they had discovered a new path by constantly trying to disguise their reliance on the iconoclasts of last century. Tracing the origins of a movement such as Performance art has become just as much of an obsession amongst academics as it has been amongst practitioners who sought ever different variations of self-mutilation. Picabia was there first but was he even an original? Probably not. The use of theatre to promote ideas stems back into history although few would have invited the audience to take up an axe, as provided at the door, to destroy the art inside although having said that, destruction of religious icons is as old as the hills with even the Taliban using explosives to alter history.

Then there is this. In film and literature terms, there are only seven story lines. Once you get past the personal journey or quest, the group locked in a room who could be family or a group of strangers fighting the monster, the family drama, the love triangle, rags to riches, revenge/power/dissolution, comedy……everything is simply a variation. The ancient Greeks recognised this and each story line derives from their theatre. Before the 20^th century most of these plot lines were translated as visual art but in contemporary art terms though it is the personal journey that dominates from that list. The quest to understand both the world and inner self runs through most of the art produced. Given that, can any artist claim to be working with original subject matter?

There are just as many artists who state thar they are working entirely from imagination. This would suggest that art is not a response to an external source at all.  Imagination can be defined as the connecting of images and memories in different ways. Where do those images and memories come from? Each of us possesses a collection derived from simply living. In psychological terms the time spent in a dream state is what recombines those images and memories. Even then, psychologists recognise familiar patterns of dreaming. The flying dream is common. Why it occurs and what it says, is open to interpretation. The running away dream is probably a residual element of fight or flight?  But then again, the idea of the dream was so distorted by the Surrealists that today few artists talk about dreams and art in the same breath.

There is no doubt that there are individual dreams, fears and fantasies enacted away from the real world but when it comes to translating those into art, what methodology is employed? Art school training would insist that art begins with drawing and analysis.  Abstractionists might deny that anything so mechanical was at work and refer to intuition. Whatever the approach, in the end the same methods are going to apply – marks and colour are used to express idea/emotion in painting; form is created or manipulated in sculpture; images and sound are manipulated in video or film.

Perhaps the idea of originality comes down to individual voice and not subject at all. I say that with caution. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve begun working with an idea that I thought had a touch of newness about it and discovered that it had already been used and resolved decades ago. How could that be? The answer is simple. I read too much about art and even when I think I’m having an original thought, I’m not. The pathways are common ground and art today is perpetually restaging ideas first enunciated in the 1910s. Every time someone says that my work ‘looks like so-and-so’ I cringe but have to admit that it is true. Part of being an artist today is having to accept that the critic-in-the-street is looking for ways to undermine the notion of originality by identifying influences before consideration of what the artist is offering. We have moved on from worshiping the new into an era of familiarity and sameness. It’s all been done before.

So, can there be said to be anything original in art? Originality is a complex phenomenon to say the least. Humankind has always been good at finding ways to do things faster, simpler, more efficiently but art doesn’t seem to work like that. The need to express is fundamental to existence. Every time a child picks up a crayon, and draws those familiar schema, that fundamental obsession with expression and the telling of stories rises to the surface like a race memory and always will. The original part has more to do with the discovery of an ability to tell those stories than producing something unheard of.