Developing Your Own Personal Visual Language

Understanding Visual Culture

All around us we have billboards, galleries, TV screens, social media etc that are trying to tell us a message – to watch the latest comedy series, to show us a strong message about a global crisis or to follow the latest trends. Every day we have images communicating in a visual language for our brains to decipher and interpret. Even in our day-to-day lives we have traffic signs signalling us; red for stop, orange to slow down and green is go ahead.

Artists have been using visual language for centuries, even going back to when we were living in caves and would use mud on walls to silhouette hunting areas or indicate who lived there with handprints. Art, itself; is an expression of who we are, what we want or what we identify with. We tell our life’s journey through painted artworks, moulded clay, moving image or sounds that resonate with who we are.In your personal art for wellness practice, whatever creative project you’re doing, you can use your own personal language to tell your story in a healing way. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else but you because it’s your artistic journey and your outlet to creatively express whatever is inside your soul.

Your Subject Matters

Places and People

Create a brainstorm of places and people that have influenced you creatively. As an example, I had a neighbour of a neighbour growing up who ended up becoming a step-in grandmother figure. She treated me like family and would always call me her rosebud growing up. In my art practice I design, draw and paint roses to not only pay tribute to her and our relationship but also to symbolize how I have grown into a woman.

Life Events

Take inspiration from important things that have happened in your life or the things that really influenced or shaped you to become the person you are. This could be a relationship developing or ending, learning about a diagnosis, losing a loved one, or making a big career move etc. These celebrations and low-points are helpful in developing narratives with images. For example, Frida Kahlo in her 1946 painting “Tree Of Hope, Remain Strong” she paints two versions of herself. One side appears to be in day where she is awake and in pain lying on a hospital bed, the other looks to be at night where she is during sleep and pain-free.

Personality

We all have a unique lens that we view the world through, meaning that we all have our own interests, likes, taste and hobbies. One of the ways to create your own visual language is to use subjects that resonate with us; animals (pets or other), religious figures, nature, our personal culture etc. Bringing in your individual point of view helps to shape your artwork in a way that deeply connects to who you are.

Themes

You might be someone who resonates more with exploring a theme – an example might be sexuality, spirituality or something else. Within that theme you can brain-dump key visual elements that might be relevant for your topic. For mortality you may decide to use skulls, or memento mori, which relates to death and the temporality ­of life. Damien Hirst for example covered a skull in diamonds for his sculpture “For The Love of God”(2007).

Other Artists, Movies and Visual Culture

Find inspiration from your favourite movies, going to galleries, scrolling through Pinterest or Instagram etc. Immerse yourself in art throughout time, both now and historical pieces. See what resonates with you and what stories you connect with on a creative level. Analyze what other artists use to communicate their journey in their art and practice similar styles or techniques that work for you. The most important thing is to be inspired but to make it your own!

Becoming A Storyteller

Becoming a visual storyteller means using your own ideas and being able to put them into symbols that make sense. You can use colour, subject matter, composition, interesting materials, symbology and metaphors to express your experiences of life.

In my own personal art life I find it really helpful to always the question of why. “Why have I been painting more of (x) lately?”, “Why has that artist used (x) in their artwork?” or “I wonder why they chose to paint that portrait with (x) medium”. Becoming curious about the why really helps to understand the stories of others but also your own. Technique can always be developed but being creative with narratives comes from within.

Finding your own visual language takes time and it’s not going to happen overnight. Just like you can’t learn to ride a bike just by sitting on it, you have to invest energy into building a vocabulary of visuals that are special to you. With anything in life, the more you practice the better you’ll become at it. But the great thing about it is that using art for your own personal development means that you are building a better relationship with yourself. You learn to understand yourself on a deeper level and you are investing that time into yourself. So it becomes an act of self-care.