What your purchased art says about you
Human buying psychology, says we buy who we are and who we want to be.
We buy for our needs. There are four considered most basic, which we are in constant pursuit of (1) happiness/spirituality, (2) health, (3) wealth, and self (4). We want to be happy, find wealth, self-actualize and have optimum health.
Sometimes we buy what we can’t afford…the old fake it until you make it phenomenon.
We buy things just so others can witness us buying them because we can. Chasing the experience of being envied, coveted, and loved for what we have though we say we want to be loved for who we are.
We buy how we want to feel, we buy exactly how we feel, sometimes we don’t even know that is how we feel until someone calls us out on it.
Your purchased artwork is you on the canvas, in the bronze sculpture, in the glass, the resin, the inkblots. It is awareness at its finest, pun certainly intended.
Fine art buying is a window into the soul of the buyer, and if you really sit with it, it can blow your psychology and your personality wide open.
Your art says what you value deep in your inner world
Art easily puts your values on display. If you’ve ever questioned what you care about, or wonder if you have lost your way and are struggling with getting back to your authentic self, rediscover you through your art collection.
Here are some takes on personality based on the types of paintings, sculptures, or imagery you are magnetized by in your art purchases.
“It is not necessary for a work to have lots of things to look at, to compare, to analyze, one by one, and to contemplate. The thing as a whole, and its qualities as a whole is what is interesting.”
Minimalism/Simplicity: Are you drawn to simple works that make use of tons of space, and allow you to focus on the message being conveyed? Your values might be around packing light and living your life with a sense of emotional minimalism. You may hate clutter and thrive in spaciousness both in your inner world and the external.
You might tend to be more generous and valuegiving. The feeling as though life is best lived unburdened by things or emotions very well is the compass that guides you through life. This could mean that you understand love and kindness are to be given away and you, for example, only need to experience anger for the moment it occurs without becoming it or letting it overrun your life.
You’re likely the voice of reason and the peacemaker in your friend group. If you take your minimalism very seriously you may live with a capsule wardrobe from season to season, possessing only 20-30 pieces of clothing and shoes, only purchasing things you absolutely love that also add functionality to your life.
“Color provokes a psychic vibration. Color hides a power still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body.”
― Wassily Kandinsky
Vibrancy/Energy: Who has more energy than a child?
Basquiat once said he intentionally wanted to create work that looked like it was done by a child. These works are the most energetic and vibrant, unbarred by reality. They don’t care about the lines and manage to always bend them until they and the rules are in shambles.
When someone more conservative, a stickler for the rules, comes along with their stuffy opinion to make the correction, they break the rules, even more, creating new styles altogether. Artists like Basquiat find themselves levitating in the fantasy world just above a mediocre reality–with finesse. You may be the energetic and youthful one among those you know, ever seeking to be unique and creative, not quite predictable either.
Basquiat mixed street art, the abstract, and neo-expressionism. It is possible you have a lot of ideas and thoughts and a laundry list of goals or to-do lists that may be near impossible for you to tick off. You could likely be animated, dramatic, value boldness and fearlessness, if energetic works grab your attention and your pocketbook.
Hustle/Persistence: If you enjoy glass art similar to what Zac Knudson is known for you might have a good relationship with money. You may even value money or your ability to make it, that and the hustle, persistence, frugality that is believed necessary towards attaining and maintaining wealth. Perchance, you may value frugality over a hyper-consumption culture or the “security” having money provides.
Humanity: Are you drawn to human figures and portraiture in the art you purchase? You might value connection, self-development and care deeply about how others feel, what makes them tick, and the interconnectedness of one human life to another. You could be a self-described empath. You might even enjoy human psychology and the deeper facets of human behavior or have a general appreciation of the human form.
Freedom: If you find yourself often purchasing artwork with nature or winged animals and angel themes you may value freedom. It is likely you center your own freedom as well as those things that help set others free. You don’t like anyone to feel bound and often ensure you always have an exit or that those you care about never feel trapped. There may be parts of you that need to be set free that have yet to come to the surface.
Fluidity: Find yourself in love with water-themed artwork? Your values might center around flowing or you are in a space in your life where you are learning to be like water, breathing through various experiences. Water moves freely, it does not stop its movement but often finds a way to move around rocks, mountains or entire buildings. Because it flows it grows. Even if the surface is ice, the water moves freely beneath it. In flow, creativity, expansion, and life are made possible.
The artwork you choose speaks of the way you perceive the world, people, and situations
If you tend to purchase and are drawn to a specific kind of artistic style it could be demonstrative of your political leanings, communication style, automatic thoughts, and behaviors, or general tendencies in reactions and responses as life happens or you must choose between a fork in the road.
Artist and stage designer, Es Devlin on display at the immersive SUPERBLUE Miami used her work as a transformative display of choice and option, it certainly goes beyond these themes. However she merges humanity and nature and reminds us at the edge of the fork in the road, we ought to choose both paths, the same at the tree roots in nature, and the blood vessels of the human body, and bronchial trees of our lungs, pumping through us the breath of life.
This brings us to a brief exploration of style choice be it purchasing tickets to a museum or bringing a work of art home with you.
Immersive Art: If you enjoy immersive art, art that responds to your touch. Art that allows you to not just see yourself in it but become the work. It is often hands-on and or asks something of you, more than to view it, but to participate within the experience and then again once you leave it. Quite frankly, the immersive experience doesn’t really leave you, the same as iconic works of art you can’t quite hold in your hand. Enjoying immersive art may say you are a kinesthetic or visual learner. It may indicate your desire for deep exploration and a lesser concern with uncertainties.
Traditional Art Museums: If you tend to enjoy traditional walk-through museums it could indicate your need to feel safe yet explore within boundaries. Like riding your bike on a trail instead of hiking on foot.
Cubism: Artfinder suggests a love for cubism is indicative of the boldness of the open mind. You may favor the controversial and be okay with going against the grain. You may even be the analytical type as cubism honors the many points and scenarios from which the art could be created as if looking at the work from an aerial view.
Abstract: Are you enthused by the abstract? You may be the type of person who is always in their head. Your friends may often say things like, “you look like you’re thinking” or “ I can see the steam just coming off your brain” or “ you’ve got your thinking face on”. Abstract art purchasers love intellect, may even be self-described intellectuals, and desire deep profound conversation, without the small talk. You may even like a good debate and find it difficult to relinquish your opinion and agree to disagree.
Surrealism: You tend to live from your imagination, preferring fantasy and idealism to reality. Friends and family might say “your head is in the clouds” , describe you as “a dreamer” or call you irrational. It might be difficult for you to strike the much-needed balance between fact and fiction and you may often have intense dreams.
Hyperrealism: You could be a realist, and tend to stick to objective facts. It may be common for you to stay within the lines and move through life with a very masculine logic. You may also be the type that wants to live, really live, and not capture everything on social media. You prefer to get out into the world and have direct experiences with the reality around you. You may have a keen attention to detail.
Your art says where you are subconsciously
Apocalypse Series Green By Diego Santanelli
Art is revealing.
It is especially revealing of where we are developmentally, from a subconscious basis. Consider we are always growing, learning, and healing. As much as this is true we may not always be completely conscious of where we are on these spectrums.
We are drawn towards certain pieces of art that reach in through that hard-to-pierce veil, between our conscious and our subconscious and awaken us to unresolved issues. Maybe you are drawn to an artist who depicts families, but they are distorted or broken.
These works may be pulling you towards healing wounds from parental divorce in your youth. It may even bring up why you fear commitment and are unwed now. You appreciate the work but you aren’t sure why. Or maybe you are drawn to artists who always paint or sculpt angel wings, it resonates deeply with the part of yourself yearning for freedom.
The artwork you purchase is the dial of your personality, plucking the chord of your deepest fears or your deepest joys.
The Human Whisperer
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”
― Thomas Merton
In a way, art is the human whisperer.
It may not be able to correct bad behavior, although in some radical ways it can. It will always speak what is real without improvisation or manipulation. Art is fearless in the face of the truth. It holds onto its primary character trait in all circumstances, to remain authentic and genuine.
When you purchase your art, part of the joy in ownership is allowing the story it tells about you to unfold. Allowing the soul to be nurtured by the work, nurtured and healed, and in some cases elevated beyond the last place of a plateau.
If you haven’t yet, take a moment to listen at the feet of your wise art collection. Palms perched against your cheeks, belly on a comfortable floor pillow, toes waving freely towards the ceiling.
What did you learn?
Perhaps it will free you, or lead you towards freedom that has evaded you long enough.
“Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.”
― Chuck Klosterman