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What is Art?

To me, art is everything we see. It doesn't need to be on canvas or a sculpture; art is what you make it. Personally I feel that anything that displays emotion, whether raw or suppressed, is art. This emotion could be that of the artist, their subject or the audience.
An example of an art piece that I see as art and yet many others may not is that of Kira O’Reilly’s performance art entitled “Inthewrongplaceness.” During the performance, O’Reilly laid naked on a bed cradling a slaughtered pig. It was described as “a slow and crushing dance.” While many people slated this piece for being disgusting and completely against animal rights, I think that it is one of the most moving pieces of art that I have ever come across because of the raw emotion shown by O’Reilly during her performance. The fact that you can walk into the room and spend 10 minutes alone actually inside the art piece itself and engage all of your senses, I think would draw you into the piece and make you far more involved than if you were to stand in front of a painting for 10 minutes.
However, having said that, I also think that pieces done on canvas can convey just as much emotion as performance art, although it comes across in a different way. Fiona Rae is one of my favourite painters; she uses acrylic and oil paints on canvas with strong, heavy brush strokes that she later scratches into. Her pieces are of no definite image with 3 or 4 colours used for the background and strong flashes of colour in the foreground to draw your eye inwards. I find art such as Fiona Rae and Kira O’Reilly to display far more emotion than, for example, a realist artist, who paints what they see rather than what they feel. This does not mean that it has any less value as a piece of art.
Buildings are art. Photographs are art. The world is art. In conclusion, art is everything we see and can be perceived by different people in different ways.