Art Finds Us

Over on instagram, I shared a simple carousel of three artworks that I have been fortunate enough to see up close.

You can see that post here ;https://www.instagram.com/p/Db-83Syk9hB/?igsh=YnRrc294cWQwbnlz

One was a classical figure study.

One was a delicate riverside scene. And third artwork was the inner city of Melbourne, Australia alive with movement and shadow.

The caption I wrote was short:

“Art finds you — and I feel so grateful to have found so many wonderful pieces of art to look at, reflect upon, and learn from.”

I shared this post because there perhaps are many of us that carry a memory of a painting, a song, a poem, or a photograph that seemed to arrive at exactly the right moment in our lives.

Not all encounters with art are dramatic. Most are quiet.

Sometimes we stand before a painting and feel nothing at first. Then, days later, a colour returns to us while washing dishes or walking down a country road. Sometimes a work of art unsettles us. Sometimes it comforts us. Sometimes it teaches us something we were not ready to hear in ordinary conversation.

I have come to believe that art is not only something we look at; it is something that looks back at us.

The Art That Meets the Human Story

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The classical figure in the first photograph reminded me that artists have spent centuries trying to understand the mystery of being human ~ not perfection, but presence.

Auguste Rodin once wrote:

“The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire, and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation.”

— Auguste Rodin, Art (1911)

When I stand before works like this, I do not only think about technique. I think about vulnerability. Someone once stood still long enough to be truly seen, and someone else tried to honour that seeing with paint.

The Art That Carries Memory

The second artwork showing a soft river and bridge scene felt different. It carries nostalgia, distance, and the tenderness of remembered places.

Claude Monet famously said:

“Color is my day-long obsession, joy and torment.”

— Claude Monet, quoted in François Thiébault-Sisson, Claude Monet (1929)

I understand that more deeply as I grow older. Colour has a way of holding emotion long after details have faded. A pale lavender sky, a muted blue reflection, the warmth of old paper all awaken memories we did not know were still living within us.

Art often becomes a container for memory, both personal and collective.

The Art That Keeps Moving

The final painting is an inner city street somewhere in Melbourne, Australia with tram lines and cars reminding me that art is not only about stillness. It is also about rhythm, change, and ordinary life unfolding moment by moment.

Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo:

“I dream my painting and I paint my dream.”

— Vincent van Gogh, Letter to Theo van Gogh, 1888

What moves me is that Van Gogh found wonder not in grand events but in fields, chairs, shoes, cafés, and night skies. The ordinary became luminous through attention.

That is a lesson I return to again and again in my own creative life.

Perhaps We Do Not Find Art at All

When I first wrote “Art finds you,” I thought it was simply a poetic phrase. The more I have reflected on it, the more I think it may be true.

A particular artwork appears during grief.

Another appears during healing.

Another during a season of questioning.

Another when we are finally ready to create instead of merely survive.

The Swiss painter Paul Klee wrote:

“Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible.”

— Paul Klee, Creative Confession (1920)

Yes, art makes visible what we have overlooked: sorrow, beauty, longing, resilience, memory, and hope.

What These Three Works Gave Me

As I looked at the three pieces together, I realised they were offering three invitations:

To see humanity with tenderness.

To hold memory with gratitude.

To notice the beauty moving through ordinary life.

And perhaps that is why I felt such gratitude standing before them. Not because I own them, and not because they are famous or valuable, but because they enlarged my way of seeing.

As an artist, I learn from every brushstroke, pencil mark and stitch sewn I encounter. As a woman, I learn from every honest expression of the human story. As a person walking through illness, healing, faith, and creativity, I learn that beauty is often waiting quietly for our attention.

A Gentle Invitation

I wonder what artwork has found you.

Not necessarily the most expensive piece. Not the most celebrated.

But the one you still remember.

The painting that stopped you in a gallery. The photograph that made you cry. The quilt made by a grandmother. The child’s drawing still tucked in a drawer. The poem that seemed written for your own heart.

Perhaps those are not small things.

Perhaps they are part of the long conversation between the human soul and beauty itself.

And perhaps, if we are willing to pause long enough, we may discover that art has been finding us all along.

If these words has found something in you, I invite you to share me what that was in the comments.

🖊️

References

Rodin, Auguste. Art. Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1911.

Monet, Claude. Quoted in François Thiébault-Sisson, Claude Monet. Paris, 1929.

Van Gogh, Vincent. The Letters of Vincent van Gogh, Letter to Theo van Gogh, 1888.

Klee, Paul. Creative Confession. 1920.