Two years ago, Inès Longevial, a painter with over 340k followers on Instagram’s bio read, “While everyone is on Instagram, I paint.”
Some of my favourite living painters do not have an internet presence at all. If they do it is minor, they post random photos of flowers and dogs. I suppose some of them are represented by a gallery so they can live their lives without thinking of documenting their paintings. The rest of us, without representation: we represent ourselves.
Social media isn’t a white cube gallery. Or is it? If a picture is worth a thousand words, an exhibition of pictures is a book. Does that make Instagram a book? With such an influx of pictures’ exposure, does the image itself matter anymore? Do the materials that make the image matter? Are we making pictures? Or paintings?
Do my artworks look better online? Am I a catfish? It’s like tinder all over again.
I think they look better irl.
If I don’t share what I make, what I write, did it even happen? If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? If a painting exists without a picture of it on Instagram, was it actually made?
You can make money and multiply opportunities if you post “good” content regularly一“good” according to the algorithm. If interaction with my content is low online, is interaction with my work, my writing, my ideas, non-existent in real life too? If it is high online, is it high in real life too?
Viewing reels depresses me. Paint spilled over and over again, tens of thousands of followers, hundreds of commissions, full time artists who are sponsored by acrylic paint companies. If I had such a capitalist bone in my body I would exploit it too. Will my practice stay at the back of the algorithm if I don’t?
Does the personal add to, or take away from my work? Should I post personal content, or keep it strictly professional? Everything can matter, nothing is superfluous.
It takes energy, time and skills to create good content and I am a painter, not a certified and trained community manager. I have not and will not study the algorithm. I want to focus on making good work and not get distracted by content production. However, not focusing on content production might jeopardise my ability to make good work.
Do I post explanations, process pics, should my work be able to stand alone ? Who is my audience really? Who is my desired audience? If I produce too slowly I am lazy, uninvested, unfocused. If I produce too fast, will they think that my art isn’t as complex?
I don’t know how I want to be perceived, I want my art to be seen, I think. I want support, a platform, a place to write and a place to show. To organise projects and create learning opportunities for the public, mediate experiences, facilitate workshops, teach things differently.
The applications and projects ebb and flow and the people engaging with my work in real life are the ones that know it to be true.
Why am I still on the app? It feels like the only way I feel connected to the world sometimes. I am observing, watching other people learn, living my life off the screen. We think more about how to post than how to live. I want to focus on living.
It doesn’t feel relevant to post about my silly little paintings while the world is on fire, even though my paintings are about that fire. Who am I to assume that my content is more relevant than other content. We all exist at the same time and we are all allowed to share our existence. We are all here.
Monday I will go to a protest, I will look the institution in the eyes and tell it that it is wrong. Tuesday I will have hard conversations with loved ones, and take the risk of digging a hole between us because global oppression is more important to resolve than interpersonal losses.
Wednesday I will be exhausted, and accept the idea that for today, drinking my coffee with oat milk, and watching a problematic yet nostalgic rom-com is good enough, because this is a marathon not a race and as a human being I have limits and in the fight for a better world, I can’t afford to burn out.
Social media isn’t a white cube gallery. Or is it?
My work is about anti-oppression
Resistance can take so many roads
Does it make sense to people if I share a picture of the first day of snow in Glasgow here or how pretty the flowers on the side of the roads were on my way to school this morning
or the beauty of the sky when I left the studio
or the love I have for my friends which is too big not to want to share
I want to share all the things that don’t relate to my paintings, but truly they do
to be part of social change
“I am a painter, not a certified and trained community manager. I have not and will not study the algorithm.”
Instagram stories matter
Will people see it
Will people care at all
Sharing my life online, is it good for my mental health, is it bad for my mental health
I can’t tell, it varies
I want to be consistent but I want to evolve
We contain multitudes, we are fierce and strong and soft and caring and deeply anxious
A specific aesthetic brings more people to my page, but I shape shift and adapt every new morning
Who do I want my audience to be?
One day I’ll have an assistant to deal with this for me
And I'll still be anxious about what they post
An artist is a persona to the outside world
Should it stay like that?
Is it better or is it worth to show that I am just a human
Doing my best
Instagram is a tool
But it feels now that if not used properly, or at all, then it’s a liability
Should I make for an audience?
The Algorithm
interaction with my content is low online, so interaction with my work, my writing, my ideas, in real life, is non existent then?
I don’t want to be annoying, but I want to feel like my work is valid, even if I know it is in my heart, I want to feel it in my bones
I don’t want to beg, this isn’t me begging
I spend so much time thinking about how my work will be perceived by my peers online
How do you get a city to see you?
Oh but, don’t reveal everything, you want something to remain a secret, if you reveal everything there is no value behind your labour of love is there?
The most important thing is to work, that I know
Work looks different to everyone, trust the process
Art and opinions
What opinions, does it matter? Do my thoughts about painting matter when there is such mass global violence, genocide, death and illness?
If a picture is worth a thousand words, an exhibition of pictures is a book,
What is the subject? What is the book about?
