First, let it be said that we cannot have pleasure without pain. Having experienced pain, our bodies experience of pleasure is said to intensify. It is suggested that pain leads us to seek pleasure out.

As we enter our second recession of the last 20 years with the rising costs of living, we may indeed be experiencing another great depression. Eric Hobsbawn, the British Historian described the 20th Century as “the most murderous in recorded history” due to the number of wars that took place. Today we are experiencing the Russo-Ukrainian war, terrorism and civil unrest across Africa and drug wars in South America. In addition, we are experiencing an environmental crisis due to flooding, earthquakes, glacier shifts and the loss of 60% of our animal population since 1970. War and environmental disasters are resulting in a humanitarian crisis with over 100 million people displaced. Many of us are also fighting a civil rights and equal rights movement whether we are LGBTQ, Black, Asian, Hispanic, female, disabled or otherwise disadvantaged in today’s systems. We are also overcoming a pandemic and years of lockdowns and a war on culture. Is it any wonder that we have a mental health crisis too with 1 in 4 people experiencing mental ill health.

So how is art helping our minds in the current world we are living in?

An art and design movement generally occurs in response to social, political, and economic changes, when a group of artists during a specific time adopt a particular style with a common goal or philosophy.

I am particularly inspired by the Abstract Expressionist movement when artists ‘abandoned representation in favour of colour and form’. It came about in response to the Great Depression of the 1940’s and was considered a radical shift as it has changed the art world forever. Artist’s work was more about mood and the response one’s mind had on mark making. Gestural brushstrokes gave rise to the ‘impression of spontaneity’ that was more emotional in its response, such as the aggressive lines of Franz Kline or the paint splatters of Jackson Pollock. More simple compositions of large areas of colour, such as the work of Mark Rothko were ‘intended to produce a contemplative or meditational response in the viewer’.

To understand how art is aiding our mental wellbeing, we need to understand joy. According to Mental Health America, the feeling of joy, despite being short lived, can have a powerful impact by reducing the stress hormone as well as building our emotional resilience and confidence. Ingrid Fetell Lee discusses this further in her Ted talk of 2018 “Where Joy Hides and How to Find It”. She demonstrates how buildings such as schools, hospitals and offices feel safer and have a positive impact on productivity if they utilise colour and art as part of their design. Healthline mentions some of the additional health benefits to joy being improved circulation and nervous system which boosts our immunity and fights stress and pain. Smiling alone will elevate our mood and lowers our heart rate. This therefore helps to prolong our lives. The feeling of joy and evoking joy should therefore not be underestimated in combating times of adversity.

But how are the artists of today evoking joy through their work?

Below is a list of 3 artists whose work evokes joy:

UGO RONDINONE

Ugo Rondinone created the Seven Magic Mountains in the Nevada Desert over 40 years. It was completed in 2016 as a piece of Land Art (art that blends into nature) & Pop Art (art made with artificial colour). As a work of public art, it is situated at a crossroads between the artificial and the natural and logistically sits between human presence within the nearby city of Las Vegas, and the nature of the Nevada desert. Rondinone describes the totems as transcending spiritual aspiration. This is helped by the Day glow colours which are the most artificial he could find. The rainbow colours reflect the colour spectrum which Rondinone finds holistic. The colours are a way for the art to better relate to people. They also help to contrast the work with its surroundings, elevating both the work itself and its surroundings thus allowing us to appreciate the landscape it sits within. The scale of the totems is also important. From a distance the art looks small in the vast landscape but up close, the feeling in the audience is more meditative. You are encouraged to consider the ritual of balancing and stacking of the stones which evokes meditation by land art being an extension of meditating in nature.

ALEX PROBA

Alex Proba began her career by studying Spatial Design including interior architecture and graphic design and later went on to study Contextual Design for furniture and products. Things really started for Proba when she began creating a poster a day for over 400 days which became a social media sensation. People would send her stories about their lives; these were typically sad or contained challenging events which Proba would turn into positive works of art. By collaging organic shapes and utilising bright colours, her work offered hope and created some form of closure and positive outlook for her audience. Proba has a distinct talent for creating works of art that explore ‘emotion as a celebration of colour, pattern and positive stimulation of the senses.’

Her side hustle allowed her to start her own studio – Studio Proba, where today she creates wall art, sculpture, murals as well as textiles and furniture. There isn’t much that Proba’s illuminations of colour haven’t appeared on. As a designer she draws upon everyday visuals, sounds, smells, and memories for inspiration resulting in happy and joyous designs for our senses to devour.

YAYOI KUSAMA

Yayoi Kusama has been making art since she was 10 years old. She grew up in Matsumoto, Japan to a family who ran a highly successful business selling seeds for flowers, vegetables, and plants. Kusama’s childhood was traumatic, and she has obsessively sought to develop her psychological difficulties into art by seeking the energy of life through her work, converting that energy into dots of the universe. From seeing nets in the Pacific Ocean blanketing her path from Japan to New York that inspired her to create ‘Pacific Ocean, 1958’, her work has transcended boundaries by using the theme of accumulation to cover every surface in her artwork as though it goes on forever, to infinity and beyond. Her ‘hypnotic’ paintings were at first heavily criticised. Remaining resilient, Kusama protested war, gay rights, and the rigidity of the museum system to spread love. Despite many suicide attempts, she has had a long life and is now 94 and still producing artwork that is spontaneous and, in the moment, void of creating drafts. In 2013, for Another Magazine Kusama stated her philosophy for art and life as ‘making art to spread the joy and the love’. She spends each day embracing flowers and her most recent work in collaboration with Louis Vuitton & Harrods is another fantastic way she seeks to embrace us and cover us all in dots, love, and joy. Through recognition, Kusama has found light. As someone who voluntarily lives in a psychiatric hospital, she spreads hope for people like me who suffer from similar neurodivergent conditions. She has had over 5 million museum visitors since 2013, her work appeals to a wide and diverse audience, and she is the most successful living artist.

May Kusama’s work and the work of other artists always bring us joy in life, especially through times of adversity and beyond.

Written by Georgina Angless April 2023

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