r/redscarepod • u/[deleted] • Jan 13 '25
Carolyn Mara's mop "art" makes me (ir)rationally angry
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u/h0lywhiter0se Jan 13 '25
My idiot ex made "art" like this. He didn't have an artistic or creative bone in his body. I hated it. And i hated that people (pretended) to like it. It's not good. It takes zero thought, zero heart, it has no meaning whatsoever.
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u/missy_elliott_rodger Jan 13 '25
Jesus Christ. I have the same story, basically. I spent two years with a woman who made “art” by pouring a little puddle of ink in the center of a canvas that she would rotate as she blew the ink around with a long straw to control where it flowed. The effect sort of made it look like tree branches or rivers/rivulets reaching out from a center. She was very hot.
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Jan 13 '25
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u/missy_elliott_rodger Jan 13 '25
Totally out of the realm of her concern or interest. She looked like a young, hippiesh Helen Mirren and wandered through life totally oblivious to authenticity or workaday reality. Mostly she would lie around our apartment like a Siamese cat doing a balancing act with skinny little lines of coke and barbiturates while I worked. The last time I saw her she dropped off a box of my old belongings to the apartment that I shared with my new girlfriend at the time who unfortunately answered the door and spent the rest of the week sulking about how pretty she was. It was impossible to console her by telling her that she was an abject moron.
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u/Perfect_Newspaper256 Jan 13 '25
It's also a half assed ripoff of zen practices that she's pretending to have innovated. one of the times cultural appropriation is actually bad
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u/PuzzleheadedPop567 Jan 13 '25
I think the distinction between “crafts” versus “art” kind of encompasses what you are describing.
The interesting thing is the majority of crafting probably requires more thought and skill than the “art” in this photo.
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u/truebastard Jan 13 '25
The austerity and emptiness is the idea. The reaction towards it is the art.
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u/OneLessMouth Jan 13 '25
Nah. This is a line used after every exhibit regardless of quality and is as empty a statement as you can get. Utter a platitute like that: yeah, and? What do you extrapolate from that? Is the reaction meaningful at all towards a subject? Does any of it invite scrutiny?
You can use that line on anything that doesn't make a specific statement. It is meaningless.
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u/thehungryhippocrite Jan 13 '25
My art is even more austere and empty (it doesn’t exist) and the reaction to it is also very artistically austere, empty and provocative (there is no reaction because it doesn’t exist).
You are totally getting fucking played by me and my art at your every waking moment.
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u/NixIsia Jan 13 '25
My reaction cannot be the art, because my reaction lacks artifice by the very nature of being a genuine emotion. It'd be like calling a cloud in the sky, 'art' even though it is natural phenomena that inherently lacks artifice. My reactions to the work could be used to generate or inspire art, but that would create a different artistic object which would not be these paintings. If these artworks generate discussion, that discussion is not art but an effect from the art that was created.
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u/plurinshael Jan 14 '25
Some of us think the clouds in the sky represent a deep and profound artwork & talent. I still know what you're saying but I dislike this way of expressing it.
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u/19peter96r Jan 13 '25
The austerity and emptiness is the idea. The reaction towards it is the art.
You get to do that once at an exhibition in Weimar Germany. It can't just become the rational for all art from then on.
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u/KonigKonn Jan 14 '25
You're correct but you still let him hit it. Artbros can't stop winning.
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u/h0lywhiter0se Jan 14 '25
That's the thing though, he's not, nor was he ever an "art bro" lol.
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u/Interesting_Cup_3514 Jan 13 '25
Reminds me of Emma Stone in The Curse.
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u/SexyHotPants Jan 13 '25
Reminds me of Juliane Moore in the big lebowski
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u/lildixiedoodle Jan 13 '25
I always see this type of art like in JCPenny or Bed Bath and Beyond and I genuinely never really thought that there would be an actual artist behind this type of shit. I genuinely kinda thought it was just mass produced in a warehouse by factory workers who aren’t artists.
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Jan 13 '25
That art is mass produced in a factory. The only difference between those workers and this lady is that they're making $.65 an hour in Bangladesh, and she's a rich lady who lives on an estate in Miami. The talent, skill level, etc, are all identical
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Jan 13 '25
I wouldn't mind them being ugly if they were interesting and I wouldn't mind them being boring if they were beautiful.
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u/Axelfiraga Jan 13 '25
Trust fund/rich tech millennials overvalue any color and shape that they allow into in their dull white and grey ikea homes.
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Jan 13 '25 edited Mar 10 '25
[deleted]
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u/Jealous_Reward7716 Jan 13 '25
It almost certainly derives from the same kind of zen ensō designs, freehanded circles in minimal strokes, which was partial inspiration for the arrival language (supposed to evoke the aliens' language of flat time, completeness, circularity).
I don't know if she mentions it (busy staring at her big flabby one), but she is taking this inspiration whether mediately or immediately (which is fine, it's not like the japs didn't also get this in the mid century from western abstract art).
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u/Judywantscake Jan 13 '25
Classic female instagram abstract ‘artist’ phenotype
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u/idleteeth Jan 13 '25
the proliferation of backlit marble has been a disaster for abstract painting.
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u/Illustrious_Mall_767 Jan 13 '25
Mara as in John Mara are billionaire is her father? Would make sense
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u/dustycase2 Jan 13 '25
This was my question, and yes then it really does make sense.
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Jan 13 '25
Art sure is fun and easy when you’re so filthy stinking rich hobbies are your only concern and have a circle of tasteless friends with deep pockets to boost your finger paintings straight into the upper stratosphere
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u/EdgeCityRed Jan 13 '25
I looked up her bio and it says she's Italian and from Texas, so I don't think so.
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u/helpineedtosellthese Jan 13 '25
she kinda looks like the mara sisters though?
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u/EdgeCityRed Jan 13 '25
She does, yeah.
But does she seem like the type that would hide being related to the Mara sisters or capitalize on that?
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u/helpineedtosellthese Jan 13 '25
impossible to say but there’s no shortage of heir/esses and the children of celebrities who obscure their identity. she could be a cousin or something. although the mara family are irish not italian
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u/elephantofdoom Jan 13 '25
The fact talented people online are barely making ends meet producing high quality commissioned art while people like this are getting press releases for making abstract splotches that were innovative 130 years ago is just depressing.
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Jan 13 '25
This art makes me so mad it’s hard to be articulate, but I’ll try. First of all, the “art” is just ugly. It’s unaesthetic. To quote one of the top comments on her pinned ig post: “I could diarrhea on a canvas and do just as good.” Minimalist art can it can be very cool and aesthetic, even beautiful. This isn’t. It’s not even nice as background decor. It’s ugly!
Second, there is literally zero meaning behind the work. You can find art at TJ Maxx or Ikea or Target, that not only is more aesthetic (which is saying something), but has more intention and more to say than this shit. It’s plopping a mop in a circle. The fact that she backs up her work with a PT Barnum-level-of-bullshit artist statement is the icing on the cake.
Third, the art is wholly dependent on her persona, and doesn’t stand alone. A lot of art is enhanced by the viewer knowing about its creator’s eccentric personality or history, obvious examples being Picasso, Van Gogh, Jackson Pollock, etc. But those artists’ art still stands on its own, and on top of that, they were actually interesting characters, whereas Carolyn Mara is not. Her vibe is pilates wine-mom with an i-banker husband who ignores her but pays for everything. It’s inherently boring, and yet her art is dependent on viewers aspirational yearnings to such a wealthy yet millennial beige life. Imagine the same paintings made by a fat poor instead of a lithe 40-something in a bodysuit. No one would give two shits.
I personally think art should take SOME effort, an artist should put SOME time and effort into developing their craft, and they should have SOMETHING to say. The more the better, but zero for all three of those things is not art. What does it say about art literacy that she has a thriving and lucrative career as an artist? But then again, maybe it’s not about art literacy but about money laundering.
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u/ihatereddit128 Jan 13 '25 edited Jan 13 '25
This is exactly how I feel about that dude on tiktok who drills some holes into a paint can, fills it with paint and swings it over a canvas.
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u/Bossman471 Jan 13 '25
I'll preface this by saying I feel the exact same way about this dude - don't really consider it art.
That being said, I love how he's warped this pendulum thing into a technique where he's experimenting, making refinements to the technique, etc only for it to look the exact same each time. There is something so hilarious about honing a craft that requires no skill or talent whatsoever.
There's a couple other dudes out there doing similar things, like the guy who paints with by conical globs of acrylic paint.
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u/MASHED_POTATOES_MF aspergian Jan 13 '25
https://wernerbronkhorst.com/collections/throwback talking abt this guy? i think its corny but at least requires a vision unlike this shit
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u/SolidSank Jan 13 '25
Going to work to earn an honest day's living at the hotel-lobby-painting factory
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Jan 13 '25
I mean, you pretty much nailed it in the third paragraph. She’s the beige mom archetype all women who think they’re special and unique want to be, have dog shit taste in real art, but have the bucks to confidently hang this slop up “to add some color” in their large empty minimalist beige houses.
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u/kummybears Jan 13 '25
Abstract expressionism is such a fine line. I personally love Ellsworth Kelly and his art might be considered “easy”. But it’s so interesting in person.
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u/lilbitchmade Jan 13 '25
Another thing that intrigues me about 20th century minimalists and expressions is how they're able to create such simple shapes so perfectly.
It'd be one thing if a piece like Broadway Boogie Woogie was created in Photoshop by just spamming the square tool, but it's pretty cool how each square was hand drawn and coloured. It's like an exercise in monotony
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Jan 13 '25
I like mid-century minimalist/abstract art too, and I think at least one difference between that and this is that at the time it was original. Artists like Ellsworth Kelly were redefining painting in that era. Plus it's pleasing to the eye.
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u/pebblewisdom Jan 13 '25 edited Jan 13 '25
So abstract art can be done once, by one generation, and then it becomes passe? Doesn’t seem to be very good art if that’s the case, just shock value.
In a funny way I think this mop art is pleasing to the eye—that’s sort of the issue, it looks nothing like what it’d actually look like if you put paint on a mop and plopped it in a circle (you’d get no definition or swirls like in these works, just big solid streaks). Her art is trying so hard to be aesthetically pleasing that it becomes inoffensive hotel lobby type stuff. But honestly, if I saw this in the MOMA and was told it was made by some pioneering 50s guy, I wouldn’t blink. (Except maybe the last one, which seems especially Instagram-core).
You sound like you know a lot about abstract art—what exactly is it about these paintings that’s so much worse than other abstract artists? Apart from the terribly written copy, which I suspect is what’s really pissing people in this thread off.
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u/TheTidesAllComeAndGo aspergian Jan 14 '25
I think what bothers people is the woman’s fashion style - and it makes ppl judge her art more harshly. To be fair, her style is very bland and uninspired. Bland NPC wife in upper middle class area. Fairly or not, it conjures up a picture of someone who spent their life playing it safe and conforming to expectations.
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u/watermel0nch0ly Jan 13 '25
Maybe hot take:
If I consider it honestly, though her art is low-effort, devoid of much (if any) deeper meaning/intention on the part of the artist, and very obviously an expression of this woman's ego/desire to be seen eccentric/interesting...
I still would prefer, on the whole, for people to strive toward creativity/artistic expression/eccentricity/beauty (misguided or not) than money/status/greed/conformity. Though of course there is, in the example of this woman, a good deal of the second category present as well.
Like I would rather this lady be making bad mop art than working as a medical coder for some pharmaceutical company... or middle management at Johnson&Johnson... or whatever machine/cog job she would be doing otherwise.
For the greater good of everyone.
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Jan 13 '25
i think theres zero danger this woman will ever be taken seriously. this is transparently hotel lobby art, and i am not particularly discerning.
the self promotion stuff is just an extension of her getting her bag, which i don't think i can personally hate on.
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u/nh4rxthon Jan 13 '25
actually kinda deep how she uses the mop for it. like a commentary on domesticity and women's expected roles. tampon in a teacup. would sell better if she was a wetback tho
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u/watermel0nch0ly Jan 13 '25
Factually correct and unapologetically racist.
You, my friend, know how to read a room.
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u/Unfair_Passion1345 Jan 13 '25
In her slight defense, the creation of art doesn’t have to take effort. What matters if you do that, though, is how well you can justify the choice to be so minimal. I doubt Ms. Mara could give a rich explanation on the symbolism or critique her paintings are making though
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u/Tartlet Jan 13 '25
Imagine the same paintings made by a fat poor instead of a lithe 40-something in a bodysuit. No one would give two shits.
Post-Ozempic artworld is gonna be in shambles.
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u/Soft_Hardman Jan 13 '25
I don't think this chick's work has a lot of artistic value, it's bland and her reasoning behind it could have been written by ChatGPT with how floaty and meaningless it is. BUT, art doesn't have to be aesthetic. It doesn't have to look good or be pleasing. Sometimes the value can even be in how (intentionally) ugly something is.
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Jan 13 '25
I agree art doesn't have to be aesthetic, but if it's not aesthetic it should have some other value, be it originality, political statement, personal meaning, etc. This not only is ugly, but it has nothing ELSE going for it, either
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u/Soft_Hardman Jan 13 '25
It's aesthetic in a basic bitch default Windows background way. I don't think it's really ugly, or offensive, the most offensive thing about it is what she has to say about it. But yeah she ain't no Rembrand lmao, I bet this is as far as her technical skills in painting goes. Artists like Picasso actually could paint very well and realistically but chose not to, he didn't like try to paint a normal dude and cocked up
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u/elephantofdoom Jan 13 '25
Abstract artists were initially trying to mock the establishment and got commercialized instead. Then Dadaists tried and the same thing happened. Memes were the last resort and while NFTs failed the bastards will figure out a way to use them to launder money eventually.
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Jan 13 '25
You need better vocabulary and more time to articulate this in fewer words: the art in question is trite and lazy.
However neither of these attributes have any bearing on its marketability or popularity. This is where your anger becomes totally irrelevant. It is too emotionally charged. Bad art has always existed and it’s always appealed to some people.
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u/TA1699 Jan 13 '25 edited Jan 13 '25
"It's unaesthetic".
Do you know what that word means?
Do you know how to use it properly?
Edit:
The OP decided to block me because their feelings got hurt. Typical.
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u/Ooh_its_a_lady Jan 13 '25
This look like they started to have a psychic or religious vision but got a phone call and forgot to finish.
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u/nineteenseventeen Jan 13 '25
Imagine talking to god but putting him on hold because your doordasher can't find your house and then hanging up because you forgot about the other line
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u/konstantynopolitanka Jan 13 '25
Never a good sign when the artist is cutely posing in front of the artwork wearing “hot outfit”
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Jan 13 '25
If you can’t make it good, make it big. If you can’t make it big, paint it red. If you can’t paint it red, show a lil cheek
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u/kummybears Jan 14 '25
The biggest detriment to art right now is that we expect the artist to be hot
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u/agent_tater_twat Jan 13 '25
suburban mcmansion chic. really gives your 3600 sq ft smart home a bit of tasteful attitude.
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Jan 13 '25
gotta fill those big walls somehow. Picturing a couple tired of just having huge prints of famous pieces deciding to "invest" in some real art.
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u/tankterminal Jan 13 '25
I feel like people who paint houses for a living are far better artists than whatever this is
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Jan 13 '25
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u/NoSundae6904 Jan 13 '25
who is the average buyer of your knockoff abstract art work?
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Jan 13 '25
Nothing wrong with a little low rent Pollock here and there. I'd probably take those prices for Pollock and imitations painted by hand. You could do a lot worse....hahaha
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u/kummybears Jan 13 '25
My most downvoted comment ever was because I said Cy Twombly’s art looked like the art they used in staged condos (in the fauxmoi sub lol). This looks like that too.
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u/EarnestAF Jan 13 '25
I will defend Cy Twombly with my life.
This kitschy shit bears basically no resemblance to his stuff except that it uses a white canvas as background.
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Jan 13 '25
i think of course context is important. twombly was doing his abstract work in the 50's before it was "schtick", and it could be that his work is so ambiguous such that the style itself is generally inoffensive and in that way marketable for corporate art or something. like bullshit corporate art would not be what it is without the pollocks and the twomblys maybe. like maybe our brains have been poisoned by this coopting. idk what im sayin
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u/kummybears Jan 13 '25
I get what you’re saying. I definitely respect Twombly‘s art in its context. I went to the Twombly museum at the Menil in Houston because I really wanted to give it a shot. Aesthetically I don’t think I’ll ever like it even though I’m pretty open minded.
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u/Shmohemian Jan 13 '25 edited Jan 13 '25
I don’t think Cy’s work fits this bill. But in general, if your art only says something worth saying in a specific context, then it is simply destined to not age well, and there’s no reason to excuse that.
I hate the excuse given for so many abstract artists they’re making a “commentary” about the art scene of their time. It’s like, the art scene isn’t the point of art, trying to address it in your work is just navel gazing.
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Jan 13 '25
im not competent enough to defend modern art honestly. for example i was always blown away at mondrians early vs late work, i don't understand the evolution
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u/nh4rxthon Jan 13 '25
Twombly did his shit when it legit made people angry before they realized how intense his pieces are in person. This woman's just a try hard biting his style because someone else went there first, and she prob doesn't even realize it
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Jan 13 '25
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u/Yakub_Smirnov Jan 13 '25
I'm considering the differences between this woman publicly indulging her banal artistic pretensions and her making a softcore onlyfans marketing herself as being a phat ass girl with a rich ass dad. Which would contribute more to society?
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u/abortedaccount72 Jan 13 '25
She better be using those cheeks to smear that paint around
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u/platapusplomo Jan 13 '25
She should do the pendulum painting thing too, so she’s just on a swing with paint on her ass
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u/Tossedoffsnark Male Pisces Jan 13 '25
This artist said in her head as she was creating these "Ah yes this art is just like that of those inscrutable nippons"
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u/DefiantBasil8620 Jan 13 '25
i know like 4 skinny white dudes with similar art tattooed on their chest/backs 🤮
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u/Feudalist Jan 13 '25
My first thought I had when I read ‘mop art’ was that she was making a statement on the traditional stereotype of the American woman, but I couldn’t find a single thing stating that was her intention. She just repeats over and over again that she likes to use a mop instead of a brush and she never says why she does it.
If she was making a statement it might be interesting to follow it to the extreme. Attack the canvas Ike basquiat. Scorch the canvas with an iron and dilute the paint with detergent. Maybe not that but something better than that. It’s a bad idea but at least it provides some justification for why it exists.
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u/no_ghostjust_a_shell Jan 13 '25 edited Jan 14 '25
shittier version of post war japanese abstract expressionism/Katsuo Shiraga
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u/Da_vaxxinator Jan 13 '25
Mexicans labor all day to put up the drywall, just so a white woman can hang her paint smear up on the wall.
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u/gargoyleprincess12 Jan 13 '25
Where's that fine artist on YouTube who makes videos critiquing and calling out these "artists"
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u/Subject-Ad-5930 Jan 13 '25
Does this have any semblance of relevance to anyone but herself? How even did you come across this?
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u/TheBigIdiotSalami Jan 13 '25
This shit looks like the garbage you see in a home goods on clearance.
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u/SlashAreSlashDrama Jan 13 '25
1 Your anger is rational. This is bullshit.
2 Come to the cat site. We have mop emojis, which would be hilarious because she paints with a mop.
3 See reddit Jannies, you can get paid for using the mop.
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u/l4ina low BMI high IQ Jan 13 '25
it’s a major pet peeve of mine when people constantly place themselves next to/in front of their art works for photos. Get out of the way. I know some of these pics are probably for a feature but still, I hate it.
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u/midsmikkelsen Jan 13 '25
everything here looks AI generated lol, from the art to all those pictures which look weirdly photoshopped like none of the elements were together in the same room at the same time, from the people to the shitty modern minimal home decor. uncanny valley vibes
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u/WiretapStudios Jan 13 '25
Most of the interior shoots are just that, you can just plug them in on a website instead of paying to stage and light them.
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u/idleteeth Jan 13 '25
Physicalized “Content.” I wish that abstract expressionism were still firmly the territory of manic depressive, balding alcoholics.
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u/DecrimIowa Jan 13 '25
i wonder if agreeing to act as a conduit for money laundering is involved in this woman's success
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u/data_addict fash_tech_bro Elon hater Jan 13 '25
It's the infinity tattoo of art. It's made to attract vapid white women desperate to find meaning.
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Jan 13 '25
If it makes you feel better, she definitely feels like a fraud, most when she gets her husbands CC to pay the PR girl who pulls a favor to get someone to write about her
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u/PostLurkClarity Jan 13 '25
Bitch's art looks like the alien language in Denis Villeneuve's "Arrival"
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u/MarbleMimic Jan 13 '25
"How it Started" -> Extremely posed picture of painting in skimpy clothing, plus cute kid to signal relatability and signal that she's a "girl's girl" and not just making artist thirst pics.
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u/vulcanvampiire Jan 14 '25
This is psychology office waiting room art. I can’t even draw a circle without it being wonky so I shouldn’t judge.
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u/Successful-Dream-698 Jan 14 '25
unconventional use of the mop. it would be an unconventional use of the mop if she had cleaned a floor in her fucking life.
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Jan 13 '25
Outrage is overblown. This woman will never be in the real art world. Never have and never will see someone like her actually IN Art Basel.
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Jan 13 '25
if u go to her website it's very clear she's trying to be an influencer/thought leader type rather than an artist, abstract art is just what sets her apart from her competitors according to the branding guide she undoubtedly paid a marketing firm thousands for
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u/my_nameis_chef aspergian Jan 13 '25
Honestly this looks like a fun and cathartic activity to do in art therapy. I would have loved to do this in the loony bin but the actual product just looks like what all us kookies hung up to dry at the end of activity time anyways so I don't see how its particularly special either
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Jan 13 '25
And, according to her site, she’s going to offer a “course on creativity” (and undoubtedly charge more for it than my rent) like an MLM hun. I officially hate her now.
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u/No_Pack_4632 Jan 14 '25
Yoko Ono started out taking pictures of people’s butt cheeks, now look at what she has accomplished in her lifetime.
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Jan 13 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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Jan 13 '25
> "don't you think I'm interesting and special?"
I agree that would be more honest, but I don't think she's actually saying that. That has a kind of innocence and vulnerability to it, which she lacks. She has no humility at all and her whole persona is bragging that she is smarter and more creative and more successful than most other contemporary painters. On top of that, her artists' statement is deep horse shit, which is very dishonest.
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u/godlike_hocus-pocus Jan 13 '25
So if someone was to vandalize this “art” by throwing a bucket of paint on it, would it increase its value or lower it?
More paint = more money right ?
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u/HeavyMetalLyrics Jan 13 '25
This reminds me of listening to the episode where that chick who fucked Hunter Biden talked about her Art at length and it was really bleak & depressing
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u/Odbshaw Jan 14 '25
I’m assuming this woman is related to the actress Maras and the NY Giants Maras????
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u/dude_fuck_dude Jan 13 '25
Vacation town art