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_ Out of the three artists we were given an option to comment on, Ipersonally chose the painter/ performance artist Bruce McLean, due tothe wide variety of points about him we can comment on. BruceMcLean is an artist in which style of work captures the viewers of his

paintings, due to its extravagant simplicity. However, in my point ofview, this is one of the reasons that greatly brought him down.Personally, I think, in art, simplicity of complexion is an interesting wayto capture the viewers and embrace the art more, and thats all good.However, Bruce McLean had gone a little too far in integrating the ideaof simplicity in his paintings and made some his paintings almost toosimple, at an unbearable rudimentary level, thus had affected hisstance. One example of this would be his painting- the Cavalily.

_ For this painting, even though he had included his style of twist insimplicity, he has made it too simple, and the result is explicitly- no

matter how many times you looked, no matter which directions did youlook at it from, its still the same blue

tree with a funkymultichromatic background.That leaves the painting quitebland and a bit meaningless.However, it all depends on theviewers ideas about itEventhough this painting- theCavalily- had proved itself to bequite a bland and unimpressive

work of Bruce McLean, thereare far better ones that he hadproduced, and one examplewould be- the Aftersun Soother.In this painting, he hadincorporated the idea ofsimplicity perfectly, working ata minimal working rate but yetstill produced a painting with ameaning worthy of a workproduced with a maximal rate

effort. The good thing aboutthis picture is that it leaves

quite a paradox within the viewers minds, as when we looking at itgenerally, we dont see much except streaks of blue and a yellow eyein the middle with a dark and somber background. However, if wefocus on the details step by step, we can then realize that whenconcentrating on the blue marks along with the eye, the shape formedon the left hand side resembles a toad (without noticing the black

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outlining). Then, when we start to pay more attention to the blackoutline, we can then see that it was actually a person, and the yelloweye turned out to be his or herbreast. Therefore, this painting,though simple, excels in its simplicity, and thus would make BruceMcLean a very successful artist.

Onto quotations, Bruce McLean had two quotations mentioned in thevideo that really caught my attention. One was: Artists and art canchange the world; and the other being As an artist you can do whatyou want, when you want to do it and however you want to do it.The first quotation made by him: Artists and art can truly change theworld, in my opinion, was rather inspiring, plausible to some people,yet incredibly vain. The quotation and his general ideology is truly vainand unrealistic, as exactly how can artists change the world, and inwhat way WILL they change the world, should that idea come to areality. Also, another question that could be asked is that in what

effects artists will create when the world is truly changed? Will it begood and influential? Will it serve as a bad influence perhaps? Whatwill an artistic world contribute to us? Will it solve any problems weare having? There are multitudes of questions that can be raised uponhearing this quotation, and most likely the arguments that can beheard will be quite loosely biased, so therefore in my opinion, BrucesMcLeans belief on that subject is vain, unrealistic, unlikely to happen,and yet still extremely vague. It really pumps up McLeans imagination,yet also his lack of receptivity in reality.

However, although the first one wasinteresting, the second

quotation: As an artist, you can do whatever you want, whenever youwant to do it, and however you want to do it. This is an interestingquotation made by him, and personally, I think it is an amazing belief,spoken from someone with experience, thus would make this quitereliable. What I like about this quotation is the fact that he pointed outhis own belief that art is a very free choice of occupation to be made,and through working solitarily, you, as an artist, would have noobligations or restrictions blocking you and making you refrain fromexpressing your feelings or do whatever you mind tells you to. As amatter in fact, many artist came to success through improvisation orpainting through the use of his/her own instincts, and thus that is why

that quote made by McLean really excels.