Social Media

Life as Art

The artist that I have chosen to write about is Nastya Nudnik. Nudnik takes artwork from a New York artist, Edward Hopper and changes them so that it fits into modern time in her “Emoji-nation” series. He is mainly known for his great realist oil paintings that captures moments of miserable, dull American lives and transforms them onto a piece with vibrant colours from his love of colour and perfect simulation of natural light.  Although these artworks are not her own original pieces, Nudnik modernizes these artworks by adding slight details. She portrays simplicity by placing in social iconography into some of Hopper’s pieces without changing the artwork too much so that the piece still keeps the same isolation and loneliness that is displayed in the original artwork.

            Nudnik’s artwork relates to my topic because of the way that she inserts social media iconography. Most people in the current generation would understand where each of the inserted iconography come from and understand the meaning of it. In one of Hopper’s artwork, Sunday, the way she portrays the loneliness is by showing that this man sitting all alone has a no Instagram “followers” symbol above his head, showing that he is alone. This addition gives us an idea of what the man could be thinking about with his blank stare. It is a very simple addition to the art piece but it is a great representation of the twenty-first century because in this current generation, many people on social media try to get as many followers as possible to show that they know many people and they are “popular”.

            The addition that Nudnik adds to Hopper’s artwork brings in a much younger audience. The original artwork has an older feel to them because of when they were created. In the original artwork, they attract more artistic audiences because artists would have a better understand of what is behind the picture and what is used to create them. Nudnik’s changes the audience to a teenager audience mainly because of how it can relate to many people. In one of Hopper’s artwork, Summer Evening, it shows two teenagers that are speaking to each other in a night time setting. While in Nudnik’s piece, it is also two teenagers speaking, but she adds speech bubbles with an “emoji” with a kissing face on top of the boy and one with dots on top of the girls head. The dots on the iPhone represent that the other person is typing. Nudnik is trying to portray that that girl is trying to say something by showing that she is “typing”. Just by looking at the speech bubble on the girls head, it gives me the feeling that she is not into the boy. Through these two simple additions, it creates a change in audience that allows for more to be portrayed in the artwork and adds feeling into them in another way.

            Nudnik’s work is important because there are many people that can relate to these pictures. This art is a perfect medium to reach people because of how much social media has been integrated into everyone’s lives. The current generation has been mostly known for electronics and the Internet. Her artwork shows how much social media is used in real life compared to a time when it didn’t exist. The additions to Hopper’s art gives them a whole new meaning that only current generations could understand because of how much we use these things every day.

            The artwork that Nudnik has edited should be shared because of how it can have an effect on teenagers that use social media a lot. Twitter is a site that is used to say anything that you want so all your followers can see it. I feel that many people express their feelings on Twitter so other people can understand them. Followers have the option to “favourite” or “retweet”. Retweeting means that they are taking the post and posting it to their own profile for their own followers to see. Many people use this to show how they are also feeling so they don’t have to “tweet” it themself. In the Nudnik’s addition to Hopper’s Conference at Night, she adds snapshots of Twitter. It shows Edward Hopper tweeting and others leaving a liking and retweeting it. This should be shared because of how much social media has created ways to express feelings and for others to understand how you are feeling. People that haven’t experienced any social media sites may not understand these pictures, but if it is shared and explained they will get the opportunity to learn what these social media sites can allow teens to do and how it can be good for them. The way these artworks can educate the public are by showing them that how much social media is incorporated into a teenager’s everyday life. If people that haven’t experienced social media have these things incorporated into their lives, it will create a new meaning to how they do things and may even change it up for the better. It will also allow older generations to understand why teenagers do the things they do and have an understanding of what they think of.

            I feel that Nudnik’s artwork could be promoted through the newspaper because the newspaper is usually read by an older audience. If it is promoted through the newspaper, it will create many questions because they will not understand what these pictures mean. If they don’t understand, they will start to research them online and it will lead to these social media sites. The older audience will get an understanding of how loneliness emotions have been explained because of social media through these pictures.