Contemporary Arts

Different Styles of Contemporary Arts

Painting
Painting is a type of fine art that utilizes pigmented colors by applying them to canvas, paper, or any
other flat surface with or without a paintbrush. Oil, acrylics, watercolors, or pastels may also be used.
Fine artists have been known to employ anything from chapel ceilings, glass windows, dumpster-dived
couches, to old closet doors as painting surfaces. This area of fine art includes drawing, usually with
pencils, markers, paint markers, charcoal, crayons, and chalk.
Sculpture
Sculpture is a visual art defined by the artists shaping, molding, and forming, shapes, and figures. The
freedom of sculpture is the varied materials that can be used to do this such as stone, wire, metal,
bronze, ivory, wood, plastic, clay, and other unique mediums to create structures and forms. Some
unique contemporary sculpture exhibitions have even used pieces of clothing, colored pencils, and
pennies.
Architecture
Architecture is the study and the design, planning, and construction of buildings, often based on
different time periods such as Victorian, Gothic, Plantation, Colonial, or Greek Corthinian. Today, some
common architectural styles that may be recognizable are American Craftsman, Mid-Century Modern,
and High-tech architecture of the 21st century. More contemporary architecture designs are expressive
and sometimes represent everyday items, such as the 1.5 billion dollar Hollywood, Florida Hard Rock
Casino, The Guitar Hotel.
Poetry
Poetry has also evolved to include the more contemporary, spoken word poetry having its roots in the
Harlem Renaissance, Beat Poets era, Call and Response of African culture, and competitive poetry
slams for youth and adults. Poetry is often paired with the fine art forms of painting and drawing,
sculpture, and dance. Some of the world’s most renowned poets are Rumi, Walt Whitman, Robert
Frost, Emily Dickinson, Gwendolyn Brooks, Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Gil Scott-Heron, Nikki
Giovanni, Asia Samson, Nayyirah Waheed, Rupi Kaur, and Jasmine Mans.
Music
The purpose of music is to vocalize or use instruments to express feelings, thoughts, and harmony.
The universal language of music underpins many world cultures and is a source of historical narrative
storytelling. Music is a form of rhythmic communication involving various instruments such as
percussion (yes, this includes the Piano), woodwind, brass, and string. Music is accompanied by
lyricists on many occasions, or without and falls under several genres such as Blues, Jazz, Folk,
Reggae, Country, Hip Hop, Opera, Classic, Film Scores, Indie, Techno, Rock, Classic Rock, R&B,
Trance, Heavy Metal, and Gospel.
Literature
Literature is comprised of the written word and associated with a collection of written work. It does not
denote anything specific in its most barebones definition, only that the work be a written work
respectively. Literature is further recognized as books, magazines, and plays; falling into genres such
as Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Short Story, Flash Fiction, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, Essay,
Memoir, Crime, Speculative, Anthology, Epic, Fabel, Autobiography, and literature by language eg.
French Literature, Latin Literature, and German Literature.
Dance
The performance fine art form of dance is the use of the body for expression of thought and emotion,
with or without music. Dance is often pre-choreographed, rhythmic, sequential, and cultural. Types of
dance are Ballet, Modern and Contemporary, Jazz, Ballroom, Hip-hop, Folk, and Performance Art.