CHAPTERS on A matter of taste

Who even are you?

The other day, James and I went to the London Art Fair. It’s one of the more accessible(ish) exhibitions in the art calendar, where people can look for nice things to hang on their walls without a Master’s in Art History. Plus, the exhibitors display the prices so, once you’ve squinted hard enough at the numbers after the pound sign, you can shuffle away swiftly from anything too budget-bending, pretending you weren’t interested in it anyway.

At this point, I should confess that I know very little about art. I go to these things with James because he likes them, and I like him. I’m also fascinated by the art world. I love watching its people swan around in oversized blazers, murmuring in hushed tones about brushstrokes, the weight of their opinions as heavy as the gallery lighting.

I pointed at a painting of a cherry bakewell and said, "Aw, that’s cute," while James bravely chatted to curators with thick-framed glasses about the juxtaposition of textures. I stood nearby, nodding, secretly wondering if I could swipe a sip of champagne from a distracted stranger’s glass.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate art. I do. I just don’t have the tools to articulate it. I know nothing about layering or perspective, or why one smudge of brown is “earthy and evocative” while another is just…brown. Ignorantly, I look at some of these canvases and think, very much to myself, “I reckon I could make that.” And that, my friends, is why I’m not the arty one.

You can see the real art connoisseurs coming a mile off. They’re gloriously identifiable: outlandish hairstyles, vintage clothes that cost more than a month’s rent, women with glowing, makeup-free faces, and men wearing lip gloss as chapstick. I love it. I delight in how hard they all try to seem like they aren’t trying hard at all. Meanwhile, I’m there in a floral maxi dress and bright peach lipstick, shamelessly trying my absolute hardest.

As we wandered through the stands, a gallery owner with long, slick hair and a gold chain approached me, sussing me out for a potential sale. “Have you seen anything you like?” he asked, with the nonchalance of someone who definitely owns an original Warhol. I hesitated, tried to think of something intelligent to say, then decided it was safer to lean into my lowbrow credentials. “I saw a textile piece upstairs. It has twigs and leaves woven into colourful fabrics and it made me feel happy when I looked at it.”

“Happy” probably wasn’t the feeling the artist intended to evoke. It’s probably some comment on the fragility of existence or the resilience of natural materials in a digital age, but I was leaning hard into my basic bitch energy. Kindly, the man didn’t flinch. He nodded seriously and said, “Yah, textiles are very in at the moment.”

I felt myself stand up a little straighter. Maybe I’m better at this art game than I thought. I’d managed to pick out a piece in this vast exhibition that, it turns out, is quite trendy right now. Clearly, I have a natural eye for spotting the zeitgeist. I found it somehow reassuring. There’s something comforting about letting trends guide you. I like knowing that Instagram influencers can steer me, purse-first, toward the must-haves of the season.

But then, we all know that’s the trap. Follow along too hard and you end up a contributor to throwaway culture, on a conveyor belt of ever-shifting tastes . One minute you’re all about Farrow and Ball’s Hague Blue, and the next your house looks like a shrine to Scandi minimalism, featuring ‘very in’ textiles, everywhere. Worse still, you might feel you’ve lost touch with your own tastes entirely. You’ve forgotten what styles you liked before you became all Kardashian neutrals. Who even are you?

The London Art Fair is perfectly timed in a week when most of us are still clinging to the idea of becoming better, thinner, healthier, or more cultured versions of ourselves. It’s January, you’ve got the gym memberships, the health foods and maybe this year, you wonder if, you could become someone who buys paintings too.

Despite vowing not to make any grand plans or resolutions this year, maybe I have been sucked into the aspirational vibes of the New Year New Me movement with big dreams of becoming that guy who knows something about art.

But honestly, who am I kidding, I didn’t know I’d hit on an art trend. I don’t have the foggiest idea what’s “in” in the art world and likely never will. I just thought the piece was beautiful. Something I could wake up and see every day that would make me smile.

This little moment reminded me how much personal taste matters, and how freeing it can be to tune out the noise of influential opinions. I didn’t need to understand the contiguous contrast of materiality or the adjacency of blah blah blah. I just liked the lilac at the top and the way it made me feel. I’d go as far as to say it would have matched well with my bedspread. Though, even I knew that was an admission too far to share with the art folk.

As February rolls around, I think we can all collectively exhale, throw in the towel, and stop trying quite so hard. Well, most of us can. I’m not sure the art world will get the memo. But that’s okay. Appearing effortless while simultaneously striving to be noticed is a balancing act none of us are entirely immune to.

But maybe there’s an art to not caring too much. To not overthinking the words, the trends, or the image you’re projecting. To just standing in front of something you love and saying, “I like it because it makes me happy.” That, I think, is the kind of art and the kind of life I’d like to fill my walls with. Shame it had already sold.