By Rhian Kille
One thing about me, is that I love going into an art gallery and seeing a painting from the 1890s by a mentally ill Norwegian man and saying to my friend: ‘that’s sooo girl-coded!’ For some of you there is no convincing needed (the photo dumps look lovely by the way) but for others I think it’s so easy, when approaching ‘fine’ art or art history, to worry that you just don’t ‘get’ it. A similar mystique exists around poetry – these artistic mediums have gained a reputation for being inaccessible and pretentious. Especially since there is often a financial cost to galleries making this intangible barrier, well, tangible.
People don’t look for fine art outside of galleries because the spaces seem elevated and impenetrable. The physical isolation associated with fine art puts the separation from daily life in people’s minds – this is product of the ‘art world’ being notoriously steeped in elitism. This makes it difficult to feel at home among this kind of art, or to worry you haven’t got anything smart to say. It is important to remember that there is nothing to ‘get’. It’s a trap to think otherwise.
It’s easy to see traditional mediums like painting and sculpture as having fallen out of modern life, replaced by technology and its accompanying forms of media, from TV to TikTok. I’d like to talk about the ways technology can actually increase access to traditional art and work in tandem with it, rather than existing purely as opposition. I’m going to take you through 5 of my favourite artists and their paintings as a place to start if you are looking to learn more, from someone who also doesn’t know very much.
In the 21st century, we have access to years of art history, as well as contemporary work, so learning about any of it can be overwhelming. Everything is submerged in historical context or placards explaining artist’s intentions that are difficult to keep up with. So I don’t. Not all of the time anyway. My favourite way to approach art is instinctual, I look for something that I understand or something I really don’t, a look in a portraits eye or the pure romance of lovers clinging to each other. It’s self-involved. I shamelessly walk through galleries using paintings as windows to reflect on parts of my own life as well as obviously taking the opportunity to learn about the experiences of others. Thinking big thoughts comes secondary to connecting to a piece of work, in whatever small way that is. We live amongst an abundance of art, and this allows us the luxury of zoning in on what we are interested in and what makes us feel any small something. If you needed permission from someone to go to a gallery and stare at the one painting you like, here it is. Here are 5 artists and their paintings I love to get you started (my apologies, my love of oil paint and self-portraits really shines through – I have a type).
1. Edvard Munch:
I’m sure you’ve seen ‘The Scream’ (1893) but Munch’s life’s work fills a whole 13 floor museum in Oslo, dedicated solely to him, that I was lucky enough to visit. I fell in love with his paintings of lovers and his awe-inspiring ceiling tall landscapes. I love Munch’s ‘Love and Pain’ (1895) and ‘The Sun‘(1909). Or if you like ‘The Scream’ I’d recommend the unsettling ‘Anxiety’ (1894).
2. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec:
If after Munch you’re looking for more poignance and melancholia, Toulouse-Lautrec offers an illustrative and Parisian artistic variety. He made posters for the 19th century Moulin Rouge and his depictions of theatrical Paris are contrasted with his more intimate, quiet portraits; most famously ‘In Bed’ (1892). ‘In Bed The Kiss’(1892) is its twin. His isolation and loneliness, a craving for human connection, colours his work.
1. Frida Kahlo:
You know her, you love her. She’s that girl. Unsure where to start with Kahlo? I would point you towards: ‘The Two Fridas’ (1939), ‘the Broken Column’ (1944) and ‘A Few Small Nips’ (1935). In the last she processes her husband Diego’s affair with her sister, depicting Diego standing over her having stabbed her (TW: blood) – and I think we can all say she’s so real for that. Frida Kahlo is the definition of ‘just a girl’.
2. Camila Salinas:
If you like self-portraiture, search for @caamileon on TikTok. A contemporary oil painter with large social media following, Salinas is currently 20 years old and attending art school. She makes photo realistic oil paintings with very light surrealist elements. She often paints several co-existing versions of her “self” divided into different forms. My favourite of hers is Lucky Number Four’ (2024) which shows four versions of the artist as she breaks into a smile.
3. Monica Sjöö:
My final pick is a wildcard, if you want something weirder. I saw an exhibition on Sjöö’s cosmic femininity in Oxford’s Museum of Modern Art last year. Sjöö was an eco-feminist active in the 1970s women’s liberation movement. Some of her paintings portray a divine feminine connection with the natural world, as she was a pioneer of the Goddess movement, and others depict rage at women’s role in society. Her painting ‘Housewives’ (1975) has the same rageful emotion as Paris Paloma’s viral song ‘Labour’ and ‘Mother Earth in Pain, Her Trees Cut Down, Her Seas Polluted’ (1996) speaks so perfectly to climate panic and panic that it may as well have been painted yesterday.
Recently, to fuel my growing interest in art history, I have been trying to find ways to increase my exposure to it; I craved more opportunities to interact with it beyond repetitive trips to my single local gallery-museum (I love you always National Museum Cardiff). Naturally, I looked to my phone, and to the magical wonderful app that is Pinterest – every English student’s mothership and an application I’m sure you’re all intimately familiar with. I filled my feed up with the couple paintings I knew of and liked (essentially establishing nothing more than my preferred colour palette) and let the algorithm do the rest. From there I only found more things that reflected more of my emotions and tastes back at me. I then made an A3 collage which are now like aesthetic time capsules of when I made them. Another learning opportunity the internet gives us comes from art accounts on social media that spotlight different artists, painters, sculptors, performance artists, living or dead, niche or world-famous, and specific works of theirs. The one I follow is @theartrevival_ , my favourite account on Instagram, and probably my most worthwhile follow.
These things let me keep contemporary fine art and art history relevant and accessible through modern technology, lowering stakes and allowing for more simple and playful engagement instead of displacement. If you’re a creative person who prefers another form of art, maybe music, film or theatre, I’d implore you to look for art that gives you that same feeling. Or if you already have your favourites, have a conversation with a friend and trade back and forth, it’s a gift, one that can allow you to learn more about someone in a really special way. I love that one person can make art about something so specific, and someone else will be able to see their reflection perfectly in it, maybe in a different way entirely.
This has been my case for filling up your life with art. While it certainly can be that deep, it certainly doesn’t have to be, and any engagement with the art that we are truly so lucky to have is better than none.
To see the pictures I listed in this article and MORE, click here for the official Pinterest board ! : https://uk.pinterest.com/rhiankille/the-orbital-in-defense-of-pinterest/
Image by Zalfa Imani via Unsplash