As Melanie learned, the repetition of messages, images, music, any form of art, or ideas builds over time into a monolithic message, made up of the smaller, similar parts. Of Violent Times, she says, “I dramatized the aesthetics of early portraiture and battle imagery, creating an extensive series that questions our perceptions and our ingrained desire to glamorize violence.” If you are trying to communicate a complex message like that, the average person can only absorb one to three major concepts at a time. That is why it is so important to repeat yourself and stick with just a few points for minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, even decades. Simplicity of form and emotion speeds up the process and allows you to control it.

Melanie’s work is expanding. She is now photographing magazine covers and directing theatrical, elaborately produced performances of her work. These live performances are living renderings of her haunting and beguiling photographs. Melanie’s use of Blocks clearly worked to catapult her into prominence and generate demand for her work. As her presence grows beyond art photography, she has begun to influence popular culture.

Innovator and architect Clive Wilkinson praises Melanie’s work. He explained to me, “Like [Louis] Kahn, her work, at its root, taps into the primal. As with iconic architecture, a painting or photograph has to first catch you, and invite you into it, as a portal. Then it has to lead you somewhere to engage. The complexity and story in her work holds you, and has to be dense so that you stay, to figure it out.”

Melanie Pullen’s seemingly straightforward, bold imagery exemplifies the interplay between the intricate and the monolithic. Whether in three-dimensional structures or visual images—the boldly simple, immediately perceivable grabs attention, leading us to the complexity behind or within it.

In order to succeed, a Block image must be grasped with near-total understanding in a microsecond. Before your brain can process it, you already know what it is on a primal level, giving you an anchor from which you can explore the creation’s intrinsic complexity.

The speed at which something simple can move from the physical world into an enduring mental concept determines whether it will defeat all the other sensory information competing for attention. Complexity—the antithesis of Block construction—creates a delay in that transfer, and even a millisecond can be the difference between capturing or losing an audience for good. This is often the razor’s edge between success and failure.

Vincent van Gogh’s enduring iconic status proves the power of signature imagery, yet so many artists don’t create work with instant recognizability and repetitive style. It is counterintuitive to what it means to be a “creative artist.” Even so, many artists spend their lives working in a narrow creative box. I believe this is because somehow they intuitively know that signature style is what it takes to cut through. It may take an artist years to create that box, yet that is what an artist who wants to have mass appeal will do.

Not everything is meant to have mass appeal; there’s room (and a need!) for variation and subtlety at times. But by understanding Blocks we can decide what we want our signature style to be, or what we want to be known for, and make it a conscious choice.

Blocks are a tool that will help your work stand out. The Iconist is not a book to alter your work. It is about offering you a tool that you can use to garner attention—but only if attention is what you are after. Not all things should grab attention, but an appreciation of Blocks gives you the choice to do so if you want. Think of it like a certain type of paintbrush you might use, or the color red. You can use it to get the effect of attention you desire, or choose not to. I love obscure art that doesn’t use Blocks. The point is that every artist should know what grabs attention and determine whether they are going to use the tool of Blocks as their choice. Most artists use Blocks unwittingly or not at all.

Van Gogh died before receiving recognition, but many of his pieces have since become iconic. Some of his most recognizable works like the Sunflowers series, Bedroom in Arles, Café Terrace at Night, A Pair of Shoes, Bull, and Tree follow the same primal Block: a dominant central image. Not all Van Gogh’s paintings follow this pattern, of course, but these are the images that have endured in our popular concept of the man and his art. Each of these paintings has a giant popping central image filling up the center of its canvas like a yield sign. You instantly get it without having to think. Van Gogh was painting Blocks and it made his works become Icons. His place in art history and his enduring popularity is forever the proof.

Meanwhile, Gauguin, once a roommate of Van Gogh, painted magnificent scenes playing with light and bold color masterfully, yet his recognizability and fame in the world pales in comparison to the higher-contrast, instantly understood oversized central imagery of his counterpart. Paul Gauguin didn’t regularly use Blocks. When Van Gogh was painting a field, an object, or a person, you instantly understand what it is—with many of Gauguin’s works, it can take you a second. The extra split second it takes to perceive and take in any imagery makes all the difference. It is in a moment that you pull someone in to your art or lose them.