Work of Art 1.05 "Art That Moves You" Recap

Let me make this clear: I don’t usually watch reality television. Sure, I might catch a few episodes of Hell’s Kitchen or something like that, but it’s certainly not appointment television for me. That is, except for Bravo’s new show Work of Art: The Next Great Artist. When I caught the show in reruns last week, I was really drawn to it. Not because I believe that the show will live up to its title and produce the next great artist, but because watching people create art is always a lot of fun. The fact that everyone on the cast is both talented and a personality makes my interest twofold.

I’ve seen every episode save the first half of episode two, but that was all in the past week — which is why I’m starting my reviews a little late. If I had known this show existed before then, I might have had a more establishing piece for all the… uh… characters. Seeing as I don’t, I’ll just throw biographical details in where it seems necessary.

So this week’s challenge was to create a work of art inspired by a drive through New York City in an Audi car, or inspired by time in an Audi showroom. The challenge really was as broad as it sounded, but still several contestants had works of arts that “didn’t work.”

I’ll go ahead and tell you who my two favorite contestants are, in order to dodge any accusations of bias: Miles and Abdi are the two for me who are the most compelling — and for completely different reasons. Miles is a more introverted person who can sometimes show a meaner side, while Abdi is the exact opposite: his work is mostly vibrant and he’s generally just a nice all-around guy. They seem to be two halves of the same coin, and they both make great art — every week, their pieces are my favorite. Maybe that’s the television “personality sells” subconsciousness coming forth.

Miles’s piece was a piece reminiscent of his “Worst Place” art in episode two. It showed a simple screen print of an empty area, and used simple wooden police barricades to give the piece depth. Miles was praised for his simplicity, but ultimately didn’t win the challenge (to my chagrin). Meanwhile, a subplot between himself and Nicole revealed some chemistry, which Ryan described as “a match made in Urban Outfitters heaven.” While I don’t want anything to go on that makes the show look scripted or stupid, a little more exhibition of Miles and Nicole’s chemistry might give a little depth to people who appear to be one-dimensional — especially since Erik seems to think that Miles is simply acting to manipulate Nicole. However, behind-the-scenes interviews showed that Nicole liked Miles because he was so similar to her, but Miles liked Nicole because she was “good looking.” Great juxtaposition with those interviews, and Miles’ little self-depreciation at the end made his otherwise shallow comments look surprisingly humble.

Abdi, on the other hand, crafted a vibrant painting. Vibrant is, after all, what Abdi is known for — remember his portrait of Ryan from episode one? His use of bright colors to portray a racecar driver didn’t even get a crit from the judges (even though I thought it was great), and the quick shot of Abdi’s disappointed face was very telling: he — and I — thought he had a shot at pulling a two-in-a-row win, something no one has done since Miles did in the first two episodes.

The two most worthless artists of the week were Peregrine and Erik. In fact, so much time was spent on their judgmental personalities that we only saw them briefly working on their art. Peregrine took some time to bad-mouth Ryan’s admittedly bad painting, while Erik finished a rather nice portrait of his girlfriend before continuing to attack Jaclyn, who claimed credit for his idea last week. I can understand that it’s all probably just a ploy, but Erik is making himself look simply annoying instead of making Jaclyn look bad. I liked Erik in the past, but his vindictive nature had me gunning for him to be sent home.

Peregrine’s critique of Ryan’s painting was not unfounded. His triptych of himself “looking cool” while driving the Audi was criticized as one-dimensional and shallow, which is the word to describe it exactly. Ryan’s portraits have all been of himself, and he needs to shift his focus in order to escape the bottom three — something he was unable to do this week.

Jaclyn, on the other hand, was the winner of the challenge, creating a photo collage that once again relied on her body. Jaclyn strikes me as a bit narcissistic, as her art this week was all about other people’s perceptions of her body — just like it was last week, and the week before… But in any case, the addition of a mirror to the piece was absolutely brilliant in my opinion. I don’t think she deserved the win over Miles, but I wasn’t bent out of shape over her win.

Contrarily, Mark went out of the box this week. A graphic artist who generally relied on photography and photoshop, Mark decided to try painting a grid painting of the city, but his art was ultimately deemed forgettable. I think his foray into another medium was respectable, but he could have tried something even more crazy. I think, considering the changeover, if he had painted the painting that Ryan did, he wouldn’t have been in the bottom three, no question. If next week’s art wasn’t about construction, I’d say he’d have gone right back to photography.

However, it was Jamie Lynn who got eliminated. The contestant, who seemed to be dropping a lot more references to Christianity (probably to give her some semblance of a personality) drew pictures of herself dancing around a wheel which had a hubcap portraying the city. It was just as thrown together as that description sounded, and she got the boot.

Overall, the episode was not my favorite of the series (that honor still goes to episode three, “Judging a Book by Its Cover,” but the art was still pretty nice. Next week looks like it’ll pose an interesting challenge as well. I’ll see you then.