Are you a specialist?

Zebbug 60x40 2007

Lately, on two different blogs, one by artist Matt Lamb, the other by Sunil Gangadharan on Art & Perception, the issue if to specialize or to generalize was discussed. What should an artist do, limit his subjects and choice of media or experiment in different directions with different materials and subjects?

On a matter of principal, I do not understand why one has to exclude the other. I think that an accomplished artist needs both in his career; the notion of the Renaissance man still holds, even today. People like Leonardo, Bernini, and Michelangelo etc were capable of being good at more than one discipline, so why not adopt the same approach today?

On a practical level, I realised that I follow certain patterns when it comes to my work. I find myself going through periods of experimentation and then long phases of specialisation. There are two reasons I do this; firstly because at a certain stage I find myself exhausting a particular style/subject so I need to change and secondly if I do not experiment every now and again I am afraid that my work will become stagnant and does not evolve.