Michaela Hall is our resident writer and artist and has written a great piece here…
Age is just a number
Youth, experimentation, and art school make the art world believe that all revolutionary artists are only young and historically modern and contemporary art doesn’t depict those over a certain age unless for a specific reason or narrative. There seems to be an art world bias towards youth and the celebration of youth. While this is important, it’s important to remember that there are pockets of artists focusing on the opposite – the beauty of aging and being older – they’re just not promoted as much.
Photographer Marna Clarke’s intimate images of older individuals – primarily herself and her loved ones celebrate the process of aging and experience, presenting the viewer with depictions of a body that are completely natural but rarely seen in mainstream creative media. She began photographing herself and said “I thought I was simply chronicling my aging”. However, when these photographs that celebrate the folds, wrinkles, and grey hair started to be shown to the world – they struck a chord with so many, so many who loved to see the reality and beauty of ageing.
Another champion of this celebration is artist, author, and academic Alana James. Alana says her “artworks express the love of the intricacies of life as a “human” being”. A big part of this is that aging is the most human thing we all have in common, we all age – no matter our age and who we are and Alana sought to celebrate this in her ‘Life Story Portraits on Aging’ series. For this series, James would only complete portraits of people over 75 years old. The digital collages have a light-hearted, fun, surreal approach to the subjects who look like they’re having a great time. This flips on its head what we often see with the representation of older people – that it has to be serious and more reserved, and that fun, light-heartedness and experimentation have to end with the end of youth.
I think it’s easy to dread old age and see not being youthful as a negative, sad, and serious thing. However, this is due to mainstream media and creative outlets and the lack of positive representation of older age. Both artists in their own way present us with the idea that life doesn’t end at the end of youth. We are presented with beautiful, intimate, fun, and uplifting works that showcase old age as a positive and beautiful thing, full of experience and life. These works serve to prove that age is really just a number, and it’s all about perspective.