I thought this was taking me away from my art

This week, I was asked to take some photographs for a new website. Photographs of myself.

Argh! I hated the idea.

I complained about having to decide what to wear, find the right light and work out where I should stand. I muttered to myself about how awkward it all felt. And mostly, I resented the time away from my paintings.

But as I started taking the photos, I realised I had been looking at it the wrong way. I had been viewing the photos as Marketing with a capital M. They belonged on that long list of things artists are “supposed to” do: build a website, write the copy, make videos, send newsletters, post on Instagram, always staying visible without becoming completely exhausted by the effort.

But here’s the thing... I’m not actually taking photos to promote myself. I’m taking them to create a doorway into my world.

My website may be the first place someone encounters my work. They might never visit my studio or stand in front of one of my paintings. They won’t see the old photographs scattered across my table, the fragments of paper, the altered books, the paint-stained walls or the landscape outside my door—unless I find a way to show them.

When I looked at it this way, the photographs stopped being something outside my creative life and became an extension of it.

I realised that the choices mattered, but not in the way I had first thought. I wasn’t trying to create “promotional images.” I wanted to take photos that carried something of the same atmosphere as the paintings: time, memory, history, place, intimacy.

Those photos aren’t taking me away from my art—they’re part of my art. They are a way of extending my art from the canvas into the digital world.

And if this is true of a new website, what else are we mistakenly lumping under the heading of “marketing”?

Let’s look at this. First, we make the painting. We tend to call this part the Art. After the art comes all the rest... We photograph it, we write about it, maybe we film ourselves talking about it, and we put it on a website or on social media—and we treat all of that as an irritating administrative burden.

No wonder so many artists hate marketing and avoid it altogether. No wonder so many of us tell ourselves that we don’t really want to sell our art anyway—the important part is making it.

We have defined the end of the painting as the moment when we stop being artists and start becoming marketers.

But what if sharing the work is part of the work?

What if a photograph, a film, a newsletter or an Instagram post can extend the world of the paintings—allowing someone to enter it from thousands of miles away?

That doesn’t mean every part of social media is creative. Scheduling posts, resizing photographs and trying to understand an algorithm can still be tedious. But the act of deciding what we want to show, what we want to say and how we want someone to feel when they encounter our work—that is creative.

Perhaps the problem isn’t that we artists are bad at marketing, but rather that we’ve thought about it in the wrong way. We hear advice like:

“Post consistently.”

“Build your brand.”

“Create content.”

“Grow your audience.”

I don’t know about you, but none of that makes me want to leap out of bed in the morning.

I am motivated by the desire to communicate through my art. I am inspired by the idea of making a connection with a stranger—of having them feel something because they encountered my work.

Well, if that’s the motivation, why does it have to stop at the canvas?

Yes, a painting can create powerful emotion and connection... but so can the story of where it came from. So can a glimpse of the photograph that inspired it, a film of it emerging, or a few honest words about the struggle to make it.

None of those things diminishes the art. Done honestly, they deepen our experience of it.

I think I have been dividing my creative life into two parts: the meaningful work I make in the studio and the promotional work I do because nobody will know about the meaningful work otherwise.

Now I’m wondering whether that division needs to exist at all.

Perhaps the website, the photographs, the videos and these Sunday letters are not standing outside the art, pointing towards it.

Perhaps they are all part of the same world.

And perhaps that is the question worth asking—not, “How can I force myself to do more marketing?” but:

How can I make the way I share my work feel as creative, honest and alive as the work itself?

I hope you weren’t reading this hoping I’d end with a quick recipe for how to do that—I can’t. Because, of course, your answer will be as unique as your paintings. But I find it exciting to think about, and I thought you might too.

After all, a gallery show reaches those people who live locally or are able to travel. But an Instagram post, a YouTube video or a website can reach people all over the world. They may never be able to stand in front of one of your canvases—but could you touch their hearts anyway?

If this interests you, I recommend asking yourself this:

“What impact am I hoping the work has on the viewer?”

And then:

“How could I make that same impact with a post, video or web page?”

Now you’re not just promoting... you’re making art :)