Mixed media art should not be confused with multi-media art, which integrates or moves between visual, aural, oral, computer-generated and other forms of expression in innovative ways and combinations. Mixed media artists, on the other hand, while usually remaining within the domain of visual art, invariably have an experimental turn of mind and are frustrated by the traditional requirement to stick to one of the classic media such as oils, watercolour, pastels or acrylics within a single work, or indeed within their oeuvre as a whole.
Inventive artists have always had the urge to widen their means of expression, whether by using the wrong end of the brush or mixing earth or sand into their paint. This impulse can be seen in paintings from every period, but in the past artists were very much constrained by the physical limitations of the materials they had to hand. Paints at their simplest are a mixture of ground-up pigments added to a medium which not only allows them to be spread evenly, but also retains and fixes them on the surface to which they are applied. Deviating from tried and tested methods might lead to rapid degradation of the work and protests about quality, longevity and value for money from patrons.
In the past there was probably a more pragmatic and utilitarian approach to art as a whole. People expected the art they bought to last, in conditions often a lot more variable and a lot less favourable than today. Storage vaults with climate-controlled atmospheres were a thing of the future; so were sophisticated conservation and restoration techniques. There is still nonetheless a consensus of opinion among many contemporary artists, and their buyers, that applied colour and texture should not fade, rot, brush off or degrade unduly unless this process is a planned part of the work.
However, modern materials allow for this need while enabling a much wider number and combination of materials to be used within a single work. The artists of today have a hugely increased range of products at their service- not only clever new synthetic paints and finishes which prolong drying time and add to the colours and effects possible, but also, crucially, glues, compounds and carrier mediums which allow them to incorporate such materials as metal, plastic, fabric, plaster, and wood into a painted or collaged surface. The technical possibilities for mixed media artists are almost unlimited.
In the past, too, each period had its own ideas as to what constituted suitable subject-matter and techniques for artistic creation. These fashions in turn provoked rejection and innovation. Nowadays there is much less agreement among the art world and the public about what constitutes beauty or interest in the observed world. Almost nothing is off-limits in terms of subject-matter, and this is reflected in the matter of materials. What is more, a growing concern for the environment, coupled with this more dispassionate attitude to the physical environment, has led to an interest in creating art from recycled materials. Today's throwaway society sends to landfill a myriad of manufactured materials which, in their almost unimaginable variety of colours, textures and characteristics, offer a particular challenge and delight to inventive artists. For the first time in history since prehistoric cave art, art materials can be had for the taking!
