The Complexities and Risks of Mixed Media

Sculptures in the classical age were all created with stone, wood or precious metals. This signified the ability to last from generation to generation within family possessions. Today however, a popular trend defies this historical observation, the evoloution of mixed media.

Mixed media is a term that people use when refering to works of art that contain two or more substantial or structural media within their main composition. The most popular forms of mixed media art include assemblage sculptures and hybridities between sculpture and other forms of art.

The artist' ability to foresee the combinations of materials can be the reason why many mixed media works often draw a crowd's attention merely from the contrasting beauty of its substances. Combining glass and wood for example is a good start to creating a still life sculpture of a river scene. Mixed media is an opportunity for artists to break down limitations in texture, color and even physical discrepancies. It also measures how much an artist knows about his or hee media as well.

The risks in creating mixed media works can be great. First of all, artists do not often take the long years to master two or more media, it is painstakingly hard to perfect glass casting for example. On the other hand if one would wish to work with glass he may instead go for an assemblage technique and make use of existing glass pieces, bypassing the need to cast anything. The point is, using two media usually means an artist does not have a complete mastery in at least one of them. This can be allocated to risks in stability, immediate presence and environment related issues. Another thing to consider about mixed media artwork, is their consistent originality, some artists make use of combining old or antique wares or manufactured products like plastics. These would most likely have been made by external sources that could close down or disappear in the future, stripping the style of a key medium and forcing it to change consistency. These are some of the issues presented to mixed media art, however they are minor at most and do not always happen to be the case. Mixed media is still a novelty art innovation that continues to surprise our society every day with newer and bolder creations.