— At least when it comes to art.

I’ve found that often the more obvious a piece of art, the less attention it draws. Seems the quicker you can take in a piece, the sooner you tend to move on.

But infuse a piece of artwork with a little uncertainty, a little craziness, a little ambiguity … give the viewer more to find or something to think about … (without going overboard or turning it into chaos) … and you’ll find your work getting more and more attention.

Because artwork is all about arresting the viewer’s attention — and holding it.

Understanding your own work is all on you. The viewer needn’t know what you had in mind. And in fact, sometimes, the more mystery you layer into the piece, the better.

Now, this isn’t a hard and fast rule. Sometimes simple is best. Sometimes a simple (or clever) subject rendered beautifully says everything you wish to say.

But if you ever find your work growing stale, or if you feel a piece falls a bit flat . . . see what happens when you introduce something mysterious or give it an unexpected (even inexplicable) twist.

See what happens when you drape your images with more STORY.

Just be sure you give the viewer’s eye a clear central subject for them to fix on at the start, and ideally try to orchestrate the piece so that it pulls the viewer’s eye where you want it to go next (and next and next) … Not that you can control that, but often you can influence it.

So take some chances.

Especially if you feel yourself becoming less inspired with simple straightforward subjects artistically rendered. When that happens, see if you can dig a little deeper and explore bigger, broader possibilities in your artwork.

Capture photos that make us wonder.

And when you get to Photoshop, allow it to go off the rails a little.

If it comes off rather mysterious or surreal, just remember that this can be a good thing.

Because it makes your viewers think.

And perhaps dream a bit as well.

~ Sebastian

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PS: The images featured in this post are by AWAKE artist Lauren Martin … The more you look at these, the more you discover. And the more you discover, the more you wonder what’s going on here and what it all might mean. And the important thing is that Lauren needn’t explain what it meant to her; what matters is that it catches our attention and makes us ask what it might might mean to us. You can achieve this in simple enigmatic images or, as here, in canvases packed with details. Either way, what matters is the mystery!

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