Why I moved my gallery from Instagram to this website...

I am not trying to grow my art into a brand or source of income, so my former presence on social media served little practical value. Instead, it entombed me in greed. My own greed. The greed of others. I became hungry for every scrap of recognition until that hunger slipped into my own creative process. I used to judge my work by my own standard for excellence, or by comparing it to the end product I had envisioned. But after years on Instagram, I instead found myself thinking about how many likes a piece would get as I made it. I envisioned my unfinished work within the (literal) frame of a post. A small number beside a heart had somehow acquired considerable authority over my own. My art had a home, and it was no longer my heart. It was a platform. A product. But a product made without the intention of being a product is merely bad art! And, frankly, an equally poor business strategy.

The hungrier I became, the more dissociated I felt from the experience of viewing and creating art. I became an art consumer, viewing hundreds of works that artists had spent months creating in the span of a few minutes. That's not enough time to experience anything. I was simultaneously demanding that strangers appreciate my work and giving theirs approximately two seconds of my attention. An arrangement of remarkable hypocrisy, even by internet standards.

So I left social media and, with the help of AI's web design capabilities, moved my artwork to this website. The irony of using artificial intelligence to facilitate my retreat from digital consumption is not lost on me.

How do I differentiate art from aesthetic consumption? I do so on the basis of what each affords its viewer. Art provides an experience, perhaps even a discovery. A revelation. It plucks on some distant string of the wandering heart. Aesthetic consumption, on the other hand, only entertains. It engages the senses without affording experience. For example, there are many paintings and films I find entertaining and perhaps even satisfying, but do they evoke wonder? Joy? Rage? Grief? Do they transport my mind into a space I could never physically go? No. Similarly, when I think of the best meal I've ever had, I don't think of a BBQ Pringle (to which I have an admittedly embarrassing devotion); I think of the first succulent bite of a truffle risotto. Both are delicious, but only one has ever made me reconsider becoming an epicurean. I will leave you to guess which.

It is worth mentioning that everything I have stated here is just opinion and not a legitimate argument against social media (which would require a much more rigorous argument, and preferably one with citations). I am sure there are those who have found a rich life in consumption and have even manipulated aesthetic consumption for their own satisfaction. I, however, am not blessed with such adaptability. No, my social media presence has only made me feel more hollow and less human.

Therefore, this website is now the sole repository for my art, unless I ever decide to start seeking formal recognition for my work, at which point I reserve the right to become a hypocrite. For those friends and family who can no longer "keep up" with my life due to my absence on social media, you can be sure to find me in the garden, stooped over a painting, or tunnel-visioned on some new project. I am still very much alive, just considerably worse at advertising it.