An Introduction to Conceptual Strength and Meaning

1. An Introduction to Conceptual Strength and Meaning

2. Conceptual strength and meaning • This refers to the way in which an artwork or series of artworks ‘speaks’ to an audience. It looks at what the work is about.

3. Layers of meaning • A work can carry more than one reference or meaning. It can be interpreted on a number of levels.

4. Australian artist Nike Savvas stands in her installation Atomic: Full of Love, Full of Wonder, 2005, polystyrene, nylon wire, paint, electric fans. The work was installed at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney.

5. Savvas suggests that her work is influenced by: • pop art paintings from the 1960s and 1970 • pointillism and the art of Georges Seurat • the Australian desert landscape • atoms and molecules • the stars and the universe • Aboriginal dot painting • Byzantine churches.

6. p.72 Nike Savvas, Atomic: Full of Love, Full of Wonder, 2005. Courtesy of Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne. Photograph: John Brash.

7. Georges Seurat, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1884–1886. Oil on canvas, 207.5 × 308.1 cm. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.

8. Ben Quilty also creates artworks that can be considered on a number of levels. Ben Quilty, Torana No. 4, 2003, oil on canvas, 120 × 120 cm, Jan Murphy Gallery.

9. For Quilty, the car symbolises youthful rebellion and the freedom that comes with car ownership, particularly for young men. • Quilty’s work is also about the act of painting. Part of its conceptual strength is in exploring expressive paint application.

10. Summary • Conceptual strength refers to the depth and quality of ideas and concepts conveyed by the work to an audience. • Abstract artworks can also have conceptual strength. They achieve this through an engagement with materials and techniques. • Artworks are often about more than what they initially appear to represent. • The title of an artwork can add to its conceptual strength and meaning.