What is Art?

Although I attempted to define Dark Art in an earlier post, don't worry, I don't have the temerity to try to define what "art" is now. What prompted this post was a comment that was recently posted to one of our Instagram posts. The original post (pictured below) was just a standard gallery publicity post to show a range of the art we have on display and for sale. But for the first time, someone decided to smack us with a comment upon seeing the depictions of Ted Bundy and Ed Gein, two infamous serial killers. Although I made no mention of who those depictions are, the anonymous commenter, clearly knew who they were and felt we needed to be schooled about such subject matters, commenting,

"no one should b buying or selling art of real murderers"

Despite the serial killer-like, illiterate, creepy look of their sentence, I'm assuming this person fancies themselves as some sort of societal avenger, but bitch, please... Taking such a judgmental tone when it comes to art is not something that any artist or gallerist is going to sit still for. The history of murder and murderers as themes for art has been happening since the first cave artists drew bloody images on limestone walls. The old masters and renaissance painters have chosen beheadings and even SAs as their subject matter. So, to now rise up against the buying and selling of art that has murderous themes and subjects in such a feeble matter is more laughable than laudable.

The Darkwood House Gallery's mission is to maintain a curated space for skilled figurative artists with a shared fascination for dark, macabre, surreal and imaginative themes. Many of artists came to us because their works have been judged unworthy and unsellable by other "legitimate" galleries. Galleries, that I trust our anonymous commenter frequents. And while those galleries and artists have their place in the placid, brightly-lit galleries, Darkwood House is not such a place.