In creative repetition lies the genius
Recently, I read important words about creative repetition in Maria Brito's How Creativity Rules the World: The Art and Business of Turning Your Ideas Into Gold":
“If I said the words creative repetition, you’d probably say that was an oxymoron. But repetition can be a source of creativity if we see it through the eyes of an artist.
Repetition in the visual arts may give birth to a particular style or series. In business, a recurring message, image, logo, or slogan is the mother of branding.”
It's funny how I often admire how other artists used repetition so skillfully in making their art, but I always feel compelled to create original work.
When we think of creative repetition, Andy Warhol comes to mind.
Source: Revolver Gallery
This is how Brito describes the significance of repetition in his work:
“Repetition turned Andy Warhol into the ubiquitous and revered international pop artist sensation he is known to be.”
“At the same time [1949], he started experimenting with repetition, using a technique called blotted-line, a rudimentary form of printmaking. He created a master illustration, and drew over the lines with ink or watercolor, pressing a clean sheet on top of the wet lines to make a print. He did this several times, generating many variations of the same master drawing. He hoped that, when a demanding magazine asked for an illustration, he didn’t have to create many handmade originals in different color combinations. His thinking was dead-on. These early tryouts made him realize that through subtle variations of the same thing, he could please the most discerning eye and even a greater group of people.”
“The idea of a series and multiple images stuck in Warhol’s mind, and in 1962, far gone from the world of commercial illustration, he had a solo exhibition at Ferus Gallery on North La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles. There he showed thirty-two hand-painted twenty-by-sixteen-inch canvases portraying a Campbell soup can in one of its thirty-two varieties. Warhol carefully mimicked the red-and-white can, over and over again. The only change was the variety on the label. By the end of 1962, after much experimentation with series and repeated visuals, Warhol found his golden goose. He blew up photos he sourced from tabloids, magazines, or newspapers and reproduced them on materials like plexiglass, paper, or board using the mechanical process of silk screen. Until then, silk-screening was used only for printing commercial posters and ads. In Warhol’s words, <<It was all so simple, quick, and chancy.>>”
“The process allowed him to work faster than creating each image by hand”.
“Throughout his career, Warhol created unique paintings and silk screens on canvas in different color combinations and thousands upon thousands of screen-printed editions on paper.”
“It was not a coincidence that Warhol named his celebrated studio the <<Factory>> and often said <<repetition adds to reputation.>>”
After reading this, I began to experiment with repetition myself, and it is a great way to see your work less seriously and break out of a creative rut.
