Adoption and Art

Artwork can tell stories or express ideas. Art can be abstract or quite realistic. Most would agree that art expresses as well as stirs emotions.

Historically art assists in recording past events as well as reactions to changing times. In the 20th century, art that caused emotional reactions was coined, Expressional Art. Artists make choices about texture, composition, lines and color to evoke or to express emotion.

In the 1950s, a group of artists were referred to as Abstract Expressionists because they believed the best way to express emotions was to create nonobjective or totally abstract artworks directly conveyed their emotional state.

Adoption, touching many in various ways is one theme where art has provided as an outlet for expression.

One such piece of art, titled “Legitimate and Illegitimate,” was based on a sculpture by artist and activist Jean M. Paton, who included it in her pioneering collection of adoption narratives, The Adopted Break Silence, 1954. Paton’s vision of “the adoptive character” illustrated the painfully divided self that often appeared in adoption stories and provided the rationale for search and reunion.

Subway Art or Typography Art is the technique of arranging both type and type design, and using type modification to create a piece of work which can be visually captivating in order to convey a thought provoking message or action. One example of subway art with an adoption theme is Adoption Plus Girl.

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