Expressive Art Forms example essay topic

Art is expression. It comes in many forms and is used in many ways. Coexisting with society (which forces us to conform to its "strictly business" style), is a "no holds barred" type of counterculture. In response to society's dress codes, standards, and unwritten laws, a counterculture of tattoos, piercings, alternative hair-styles and clothing styles flourishes in every downtown, fashion runway, modern record, and popular magazine, and is spreading quickly to the bodies and closets of today's youth.

The art forms of counterculture are pushing the social envelope and are on the cutting edge of controversy. Tattoos and peircings have been present for many years in many cultures, but today they are controversial forms of art. In a society based on practicality with a slight influence of creativity, these expressive art forms are placing a social stigma on those who display their artwork. Many people, especially older members of our American society, seem to think that tattoos are low-class and represent a lack of intelligence. In many cultures, as it should be in our own, tattoos and peircings are symbols of status, past events, and a form of expression.

Kids are learning at a young age what is and is not acceptable and they begin blurring the lines of acceptability with controversial t-shirts, hair styles, and parental advised-cd's. The youth of today want to be able to express themselves; they want a voice and a right to their opinion. Kids are expressing and rebelling through art in many forms. Art has always been a form of rebellion and is necessary to individuals. A tattoo, for instance, is not just a way to rebel and anger parents; it is a medium of nonverbal expression. People tattoo beliefs, events, memorials, and pieces of art on themselves for reasons sometimes known only by the individual.

Tattoos and peircings are very important to those who have them and are often referred to as extensions of a person's soul. By constricting a person's expression; a person's soul is constricted. It is not right for authority figures to attempt to tell people what they can and cannot express. Many jobs and schools have strict dress codes concerning tattoos and peircings, and many demand that they be concealed while in school or work. Why should a tattoo or piercing have to be concealed anymore than a scar or freckle? It is not right for someone to have to hide who they are no matter if in the workplace, school, home, or in public.

People should be encouraged to express themselves; pent up feelings often cause psychological complications and begin coming out in strange and often violent acts, and these acts would be avoided if people expressed themselves using contemporary art mediums such as tattoos, piercings, and hair and clothing styles. Society is denying people the right to express who they are and this is causing identity crisis's. People in our society are so accustomed to concealing who they are that they lose touch with themselves and this is capable of causing lifelong identity problems. People should never have to deny who they are and should be free to express themselves in any non-violent way they feel necessary. Humans cannot be happy with their surroundings, relationships, or accomplishments until they are happy with themselves, and they cannot be happy with themselves if they do not know who they are and especially if society is telling them that they are something that should be hidden. People need to open their minds and be more accepting of others and their views; it is time to evolve.

If people do not learn they will never grow and people cannot learn if they remain as close minded as they are today. Society should give other people's views a chance or at least accept them as different and respect them. Societies and their people have always learned from each other, and we should continue to do so today. Art is a way to communicate views and ideas creatively, and governing art is censorship. Why be so close minded as to only respect our own views and never broaden our horizons and take a chance on learning something new? Art has always pushed the envelope and is continuing to do so today, despite the old, "change is bad" philosophy-clenching, anti-individualistic, conformists who run the country currently.

Try as they might to delay the inevitable, the youth are trudging forward with their unrestricted attitudes toward a society much more encouraging and individualistically rewarding. Society is tying their rules like a tourniquet around the controversy bleeding youth by making them conform to dress codes which force them to cover there expressive forms of art like tattoos and peircings. Many employers make employees cover piercings with band-aids and other methods of covering to humor those people who find them unacceptable because they cannot take the change that is coming. People deny others the opportunity of expression because they are afraid their own views will be challenged, and maybe some of the things they accept as truths may be revealed as falsehoods.