Original?

Mike Ruiz, Masterpiece

The biggest question among artists is that their art work is original. However the question is, is a piece of art work original or will it always be a copy of something that has come before. There are so many artists and so much art work created it would be virtually impossible to create something that somewhere along the line hasn't already been done in some way before them. Although not art relatedThe tyre is a good example of this concept, when the wheel was invented it was original, the invention of it was new and unseen, everything that had come before was unlike this creation, however every wheel that has come after has always had the link to the original wheel even though in some ways it is different, new or better. This could be said for art work, there will always be a connection to an original piece of work that has come before. Pablo Picasso is famously quoted for saying "good artist copy, bad artists steal" this reinforces the idea that all artists use existing ideas. But Picasso tells us that a good artist will use existing ideas then go on to use this influence to create their own pieces of work whereas a bad artist will use the work the have a call it as their own.

Mike Ruiz, Masterpiece

However even if a piece copies an artist’s style, technique or even the image itself the work could still be called original. Using an idea but it portrays a different message, is within a new context or different desired audience can make a piece original because of the different purpose  it has to the original intention of the exsisting piece. An example of the use of this is on magazine covers. Lots of magazine covers use artist styles or imagery on their covers to capture an icon image that the reader will recognize. Mike Ruiz's 'Masterpiece' in Zink Magazine shows us this. With Roy Lichtenstein’s distictent benday dots and use of comic style imagery, speech bubbles, telephones etc, Mike Ruiz cover is an obvious recreation of Roy Lichtenstein’s infamous pop art style. However there is an obvious recreation of the distinct style indicating that Mike Ruiz has used Roy Lichtenstein as an influence but gone on to create this in his own work, giving the piece originality. 'Coping, not stealing.' The piece has the strong connection of a fashion magazine, the use of models, softer use of dots and careful use of comic imagery and positioning of both, gives the audience and the conveyed message a totally different feel to Roy Lichentiens. This difference in pieces is what makes a workan orginal piece