Edited thoughts

Creating an autonomous, authoritative artistic statement is always difficult, if not impossible. Art is required to have an authoritative, definitive voice yet be free from elitism and hierarchy. Art is required to be, or at least desires to be, part of the world and yet is required to be outside it at the same time to speak both subjective and objective truths. Art is required to be self reflexive. It is demanded that art both know itself and simply just exist. Coupled with this is a conundrum that practitioners of art all face. It is the difficulty of maintaining a full time, professional art practice in a society that does not value art ideologically or economically. My art exists as a component of my life. It exists as a shard in a fractured, compartmentalised existence. The question my art practice must answer, and this I admit is a very personal demand, is this; how can my art practice be a sight for the integration of all the various shards and compartments that make up my life? How can I exist economically, socially and artistically when these elements, which seem to be internally conflicted, also seem to be mutually exclusive?