Finding Meaning in Painting Today

Millions of paintings are created each year. But do they have something to say? And whether they do or don't, what does that say about us?

I have been consistently painting since the beginning of the year. My first attempts date back three years, when I enrolled in art school in London. I got in for graphic design, but the closer I got to the end of my master's, I understood that my path pointed towards making and creating with my hands, and not with a computer. I didn't feel inclined to create interesting visuals to solve a problem, but just for the sake of putting something out into the world and seeing how it reacted. For a long time I felt that this was perhaps a lack of skill, or laziness — perhaps there is some truth to both those questions — but the point was that through this degree I learned what I really want and didn't want to do.

With a more structured painting practice and by publishing my work online, the algorithm quickly responded to it and knocked me into the rabbit hole of artists showcasing their process and their work. And while I've encountered some truly inspiring art online, a lot of it felt very detached. Detached from context, lineage, meaning. It feels as though the algorithm swallows you whole, just as it does in every niche, and points you in the direction of trends, not only in the format of the video itself, but in the art style being created. I was suddenly flooded with food and still life paintings, hyper realistic paintings, all of which I appreciate but have little interest to consume. But those seem to be enjoying the givings of the algorithm and "being pushed" to large groups of people.

As an artist in the midst of it all, it's easy to lose focus. It's easy to question your own artistic path, style, and content creation — which you feel has become an integral part of your practice, though not something you enjoy, but rather something you must do. But as time went on, and the novelty of those paintings wore off for me, I started to think there seems to be a huge gap in context in contemporary art making. This analysis is seen through social media lenses, but I think this holds true more broadly. It became important to create paintings that can visually impress, but that don't necessarily instigate the mind in any way.

Just like beauty seems to be the most valued quality in this world, regardless of who holds its gift, the same seems to apply to contemporary art. It's not important to the artist or to the viewer to understand context and meaning in art, but rather to be able to tell whether something is pretty or isn't. Just as it does to people, this logic tends to result in dullness and a loss of potential. The environment in which artists work these days also doesn't seem to encourage any depth at all. It's about creating something new faster than ever, and entertaining with cinematic tricks or beautiful cinematography, or by putting yourself out there and showing your "authentic self". I wonder how much time and devotion can truly be left to craft context and meaning in a scenario like this.

This unsettles me because I think it defeats one of the main reasons why I personally love art: because it shows what is seemingly concealed, because through the worldview of other artists, you are able to see things differently and in ways you had never seen before. But when painting becomes about beauty for the sake of beauty, there's something lost along the way. Something that I find important and non-negotiable about art: meaning. However shallow or deep, there must be a reason for anything to be, to exist; whether it's to enchant or terrify, surprise or puzzle, there must be something beyond beauty and beauty only.

I also wonder if the ever-shortening attention spans of humans of this day and age have anything to do with the trends seen in the world of social media: are we more inclined to like figurative art, such as domestic still-life and consumption imagery, because they are more easily assimilated and understood? Because perhaps we have become averse to pondering and observing, especially online, to try and assimilate the complexities of something we don't fully understand at first sight? Is this desire for ease of assimilation a symptom of a broader scenario where impatience and dispensability are first choices when faced with the challenges of the unknown? We see it in dating, in the job market. We've become a society that demands clarity, or else there's no deal.

It feels like we are living in constant fear: to meet someone that will hurt us, to get a job that will traumatize us, to go through yet another financial crisis. So there's not much room for confusion in art. It's almost as though people are saying, "we want to see things for what they are, and we want it pretty, and calm, and indulgent, perhaps for the very same reason we don't get to enjoy it at all in real life." I do see the narrowness of this argument. Of course abstract art, for instance, is still one of the most popular genres out there, not just in terms of consumption but also in the style of art being produced by contemporary artists.

But I do wonder if all these facts are connected, and what does it say about us. What does it mean to wish for an ever more simplified world. A more content, dainty world. Does this mean, perhaps, that we are not lacking any meaning or context, but that's in fact the one we are living in? I wonder.