The New Narrative Architecture: Artist as Narrator in Contemporary Art

In the late 20th century turn to the conceptual, artists often sought to dissociate art from narrative. The conceptual artist wanted an idea instead of a picture, or a marking of an instance of action instead of a narrative. But today, across the messiness of our social destitution, digital overabundance, and persistent need for meaning, the artist as storyteller is returning with urgency.

Culturally, a bifurcation is emerging away from abstract for abstraction sake, and towards the work of voice, memory, or mythologies. A new generation of artists are once again making stories, not always literally, nor in a linear way. There are no lines in the telling, only a wholly felt experience that is some kind of human.

Why Narrative Matters Again

Narrative is not dead. Narrative art is re-emerging in abundance again, but of a deeper level there is a collective hunger for something for artists and audiences to latch onto.

We have infinite measurements of content, yet we are often hungry for meaning. In the inescapable social noise there is the possibility for artworks that draw forth emotional resonances, narrative characters, or cultural legibility to break through. They signal a more deliberate or engaged look and engagement. They bring into play memory, politics, personal histories, or imagined futures.

Storytelling offers a helpful counter to the overwhelming inundation of information, as a means to process difficult complexities, as opposed to fleeing from them.

Storytelling Across Mediums

Artists working in every medium today are telling stories—creating narratives to varying degrees:

 -   In painting, the use of abstracted figures and fragmented compositions suggests some notion of allegory, or autobiography.

 -  In sculpture, objects and materials can have histories that are imbedded, whether personal, political, or environmental.

 -   In print, the use of illustration and text and repetition creates a visual diary or cultural commentary.

 -   In new media, loops, voice-overs, reconfigured content, and animation unfold like poems or parables.

The only constant here is intention, not genre: these works have been made to speak somehow. While often oblique, they offer something about the internal life of the artist or the external forces that shape this life.

The Personal Mythology is On The Rise

Many of today's best visual storytellers are developing something we will call personal mythologies. In this case, these are not vies simples, or straightforward self-portraits, but a layer of characters, symbols, and themes that evolve over time.

Similar to literature or film, this model can create opportunities for viewers to invest time and attention, creating a relationship between the creator and the collector—a new work creates another installment of the visual story line, leading to more emotional attachments.

There is great potential in the marketplace: the collector is not simply purchasing an image, they are also purchasing into a world.

For Curators and Collectors: The Message

Narrative work is valuable for curators because it offers exhibition possibilities beyond formalism. It helps foster dialogue about history, identity, power, trauma, joy. It builds context, and in context there can be an opportunity for critically larger audience.

As forth collectors, this work connects with them on a human level. It's not merely beautiful or challenging, but relatable. Even if surreal or stylized, it is a remnant of something lived. These works often have longer shelf life because they develop in the reader.

As for artists, storytelling is an avenue for bridge building, between process, self and society, personal experience and collective imagination.

Conclusion: A Feel able Voice

Artists that depict stories through their work, whether visually, symbolically or emotionally, are not running away from complexity, but entering it with agency and empathetic authorship in a time of rapid change and collective accountability.

To understand the something, we may need to slow down, listen and read. Engagement with such works is not always about answers, but presence. And in that presence lies great storytelling, and great art.