Akiane Kramarik has come up several times now over at some art forums I hang around, with the reaction ranging from “She’s the new Leonardo da Vinci!” to “She’s a fake and being manipulated by her nutso Christian parents who did the paintings themselves” (one should note that her website says she converted them). Her website is www.artakiane.com. Personally I find her work very technically accomplished but kind of kitsch a la Thomas Kinkade but I’m more than willing to forgive that given her age. I can see her as a commercial success down the road but don’t know if she’ll get much recognition from the critics if she continues doing what she’s doing now. What do ya’ll think?
I agree that the paintings seem to be technically good but in my uneducated eyes they just look so… manufactured. As the saying goes, I may not know art, but I know what I like, and I really just don’t like those paintings. I can’t explain it beyond saying that it feels like a cheap attempt to pander to my emotions, and failing.
While she is talented, it isn’t DaVinci. There is a certain level of Starving Artist Quality to her work. The kind of stuff you see at any mall and red neck emporium.
It isn’t unique at all and isn’t drawn from the heart. It looks manufactured.
What kind of name is Akiane? (Ah-ki-an-e or Akey-anh?)
Her picture crepts me out as much as Dakota Fanning and the Welch’s girl.
<shudder!> Ewwww…the Welch’s Girl. I just got over that and now it’s in my brain again.
This kid’s work looks like a copy of every “God Card” I ever received at a funeral. I see technical ability but no soul. But she’s young. I’ll reevaluate her in a couple decades.
Has anyone watched her paint? I think it would be pretty easy to determine if she’s doing it herself.
Well, if you were her age, what would you have painted? Horsies and whales and cherubic children (and maybe Jesus, were you so inclined). I know I’d have had an enormous creative output, based on themes of unicorns, peguasusususes, and dragons. Pretty dragons.
There’s a page that shows samples of her artwork from age 4 on up. She goes from rough pencil sketches to photorealistic oil and pastels in a couple of years, but there’s no logical progression from point A to point B. Meaning, there’s no examples of the work she was doing in between the pencil sketches and the paintings. Her skill seems to take a huge leap between age 5 and age 8. I find that very questionable. Plus, there are photos of her at work but no video. If they want to prove to detractors that she’s the one doing the work, then why not simply videotape her? (I recall reading somewhere that she “didn’t like to be videotaped because it distracted her”. :rolleyes: I have no cite for that though.)
Not sure if I believe it or not. Either way, this poor kid is probably in for years of therapy. She’s gonna be burnt out by the time she’s 18 with the way her parents are pimping her.
Apparently she’s a “binary genius”. What the hell does that mean?
Boy, can you say “marketing”? I don’t doubt that the kid is smart and has unusual talent. But for all that, she’s a hack – a nine-year-old hack.
I did love one of her poems:
**
The Cleansing**
Next
To
The
House
The
Hung
Clothes
Are
Drying
Oh
How
I
Feel
Like
Washing
Myself
Now
The art looks like what you can buy from street artists in Spain. Certainly not anything that would slither its way into a gallery. Whomever is doing the paintings needs to learn about shading.
Heck, I have a 10-minute space landscape I got from a street artist and I like it better.
Jesus has a groovy hairdo in that “Jesus–The Missing Years” one.
Not my taste at all but technically Ok I guess.
Her bio claims
I think she’s a very talented little girl who may grow up to become a great artist. If not, she’ll have a steady living painting very pretty pictures, and be employable in any one of a number of advertising, gift-card or other art-like endeavors. I also agree that her choice of subjects and her awestruck eye is very appropriate for an 11 year old. This, too, shall pass. Whether it passes into maturity or drug addiction is entirely up to her.
Although I quite like “The Dance Of The Mind Inside The White”, done at age 9.
Her paintings remind me of those done on black velvet. All she needs in her catalog is an Elvis and Dogs Playing Cards.
I felt kind of creepy looking around that site. I have a feeling her parents watch the web site stats and will know the SDMB linked it and they’re gonna come here and wag their fingers at us.
shudder
That is it. It lacks velvet.
I’m still trying to figure out “At 4, had a life-changing spiritual transformation, converting the family to Christianity.”
Most kids at age 4 are undergoing life-changing transformations, but they usually involve potty training and learning to tie shoes. I’m frankly at a loss how a four year old, even a prodigy, could convert a family to anything. That sets off my BS detector big-time.
When did Kenny Loggins become “The Prince of Peace”?
If Baby Dumpling experienced it, it must be true!
Seriously…prodigy kids are amazing and mysterious and I love learning about them. But I have a hard time believing she had any idea about the christian god (including his ever-so-hip 'do) unless she had some mid-American religious training. I mean, really. Experts on the subject believe that he was probably a darker-skinned man, seeing as he lived in the Middle East and all. If he did come to her in some sort of vision, I would hope he would get his own skin color right.
I’ve seen people around here treat the imaginings of little kids as proof of souls or reincarnation, so this is probably the explanation.
Link?
As per the OP, I am reminded of something I saw on “Sixty Minutes” or some such thing last year about a music prodigy. The kid could play a zillion instruments and whatnot, perfect pitch, allthat crap. He wrote music, orchestral music, and he had writtena symphony called “The Storm.”
So they show him conducting the symphony. It was the musical equivalent of the airbrushed-black-sweatshirt paintings this little girl does. Technically, it was a well written symphony, well structured, the various instruments playing their parts. But it… sucked. Had no hook, no soul; it was just a purely technical exercise in how to arrange a bunch of instruments.
I can certainly believe that little girl produced those paintings, but she ain’t Monet.