StyleWheel.org is designed to provide coherent access to diverse works of art by great living artists. Visitors can surf a circular continuum of style galleries to explore artistic points of view... multiple styles can also be selected to discover artists who are blending and juxtaposing points of view.
Analogous to the color wheel, StyleWheel (left) shows a spectrum of stylistic possibilities built on four primary modes of creativity: objective observation, emotive action/movement, imagination, and pure abstraction. As with the light spectrum, the spectrum of styles yields a nearly endless variety of intermixed and intermediary styles.
Since observation, action, imagination, and abstraction are modes that are common to all and are evident even in children's art, it is clear that these ways of seeing cannot be attributed to any artistic period or to any particular artist. Likewise, all the potential blendings and juxtapositions of these ways of seeing are just as timeless and inevitable. The story of Western Art has focused on art innovators, celebrating "firsts" to the point of relegating the majority of artistic creativity to the past. This narrative overlooks the fact that these "innovations" are naturally occurring - as inevitable as every color ever mixed. Yves Klein notwithstanding, it would seem absurd to dismiss the use of each color as soon as someone called it their own.
Fortunately, a great number of artists today are masters of the primary styles and of a multitude of subtle stylistic combinations. These styles are renewed by the honest expression of each artist's own experience. Embracing freedoms gained by artists of the past, artists are reclaiming and discovering the broadest array of perspectives ever seen in one era. StyleWheel is a guide and champion for this ongoing renaissance of everything.
Within each style gallery, visitors to the site are able to access works according to their public popularity, by the ratings of artist members, and at random. Ratings by artist members are weighted according to the ranking of the voting member (when an artist member who is highly rated in a particular style rates a stylistically similar piece, his or her opinion counts more than the opinion of other artists.)
The site is in beta, not all links are activated, and we are currently inviting select artists to have their works included for the launch of StyleWheel.org. At that point, we will invite all artists to submit works and will ask a $15 filing fee for each image. This will help us to maintain the site, inhibit the uploading of inferior work/spam, and to begin to offer annual prizes for the highest rated work. StyleWheel will provide a link directly from each image to the artist's website.
We will also license use of the StyleWheel format
to college associations, high school conferences, grade school
districts, and regional arts organizations, so they can host their own StyleWheel
networks and contests.
Email: info at(@) stylewheel dot org.