The importance of titles

In my most recent tutorial the relevance of titles was discussed. Artists often find themselves in a conundrum of how to communicate what a work is to their audience. We often take it for granted that a title can be an easy way of telling a viewer something about the work (e.g. whether it is a study, an experiment, whether the nature is formalistic or very serious or silly).

To me, titles can be almost works of art in themselves. They offer a unique opportunity to be succinctly creative. I love odd phrases and sounds that go together in a pleasing phonetic sense regardless of how much sense they make or direct relevance they have. Titles can enhance the dreamy world I feel my works inhabit.

In Art and Interpretation: An Anthology of Readings in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art, Eric Dayton says "title may be important in giving us a clue to the ideas surrounding a painting". This is true, however, the title can also be a tool to confuse and mislead your viewer, drawing them into your own creative world through deceitful text.

I have named an art book prototype for my assessment "Jennifer Lopez Lollipop". The apparently nonsensical title conjures a rich cultural world for my art to reside in. It references childhood lifestyle and early 2000s pop culture at once and places the book into the cultural context of a warped millennium childhood or winking adolescence on a bouncy castle.

1. Dayton, E. (1999). Art and Interpretation: An Anthology of Readings in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Broadview Press.