Painterly Pidgin: New Genres as Creole Emergent Forms

New genre forms of art play between and beyond traditional media. They are their own language, albeit rooted in, reliant on, and evolving out of established forms. These more recent approaches work with time-honored constructs of painting, sculpture, drawing, and other art forms, but intentionally throw a wrench in the works and mix things up in order to create new conversations. The grammar and syntax of traditional approaches are made (whether through extemporaneous or deliberate strategies) to work in unexpected hybrid ways that draw out new meanings and possibilities. Theorists and historians have speculated on broad cultural reasons for these developments. Instead, I use the progression of my art and research as a specific case in point. Although trained as a painter, I rarely make straightforward paintings. In my case, this was less a conscious decision than an inexorable outcome likely wrought by the intertwining influences of temperament and biography. In this paper I work with concepts of creole, pig latin, and pidgin languages as constructive analogs to think through unique inventive potentials that elaborate on and extend established forms without undermining or undervaluing their distinct contributions.