I want my art to make change, not money.

Recently, a friend asked me what I consider art. 

Art is any expression of the human experience. It can be through movement, architecture, language, fine arts etc., but art is an innate characteristic of humanity – there cannot be one without the other. 

I love all mediums of art; music, film, dance, architecture and writing in particular. But painting has always made the most sense to me.

I have a synesthesia – a neurological condition where stimulating one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a completely different pathway – meaning for one trigger I experience two senses. I see colours everywhere – letters, words, numbers, shapes, songs and people. I fell in love with oil painting because it gave me access to the world of colour.

I have worked with realism up until recently. I love painting faces and all the colours that make up skin. I didn’t have the time or money to experiment with my art and so realism commissions were all I was doing for the last few years. Realism commissions allowed me to develop my skills and techniques but creatively I found it very confining. It is also difficult to attach your own emotions to someone else’s picture and create a painting that really speaks.

I think the meaning of art is being lost in the unnaturalness of today's society. The market has been oversaturated with cheap mass-produced and nonhuman pieces. Artists are pressured to make a living for survival. This pressure often limits the freedom of expression, concerned more about what the general public will buy rather than what it is that they want the art to say. 

There is a difference between art and decoration. Decoration is like hotel art, it's chosen specifically because it's nice on the eyes, it’s meant to be liked by many people, safe, subtle and pleasant. It doesn’t make any noise but it's specifically selected to sit and look pretty. 

True art is an expression of the human experience. True art isn’t meant to be liked by everyone, it is there to say something. It makes you think, feel and question. A picture speaks a thousand words – I don’t think people really comprehend how incredible that is. To be able to capture a story, a history, a person, a feeling, love, hate, consciousness, self, life and all its deep and wondrous intricacies in a single frame using colour and composition.

After losing my job earlier this year, I decided to invest in myself and my art. Like the majority of artists, I needed first to make money to pay rent and buy food. I found a local gallery that agreed to display my work, the one requirement was that it wasn’t a realistic painting of a face because that wouldn’t sell.

Necessity being the mother of invention – this brief gave me a reason to experiment. I found inspiration in Georgy Kurasov’s work and patterns of shapes that can be found in nature. I started experimenting with cubism, loving the freedom it gave me to indulge in colours, and the liberty to imagine proportions and perspectives. I re-fell in love with painting and welcomed the creativity cubism allowed me. How incredible it is to be able to take an idea and a blank white canvas and create a work of art – the way it is and the way it was made impossible to be replicated. Each brushstroke marks individual moments in time during the creation of the piece. Each colour is unique to that day’s intuition and each decision influenced by a compilation of experiences from my own life and personal psychology. It exists solely because I exist in the way that I do – that, to me, is incomprehensibly cool.

Currently, my art is a way of indulging in beauty and creativity. I am making art for people to purchase so that I can support myself while practicing and refining my skills. This chapter, and the art I create during it, is to set me up for what is to come. 

My devotion is to humanitarian anthropology. I am in the process of turning an idea into a career and using art as a way to sustain and support it. The dream for next year would be to be able to work with indigenous organisations – specifically Nashulai in Maasai Mara, Kenya. Using art as a vehicle for change, an ethical means of financial support, and to provide aid to other indigenous communities struggling to survive with traditional ways of life in a global environmental crisis. 

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed from one form into another. Your support means the world to me and it doesn’t stop when it gets to me. Your support will be transformed and carried on to support someone else. I want my art to make change, not money. So for now; I hope my pieces radiate beauty and happiness and get you excited for how they will evolve.