The Work of Being, 2025

Publication
Gianna T & Vincent Matuschka

Excuse me, miss. May I ask you a question?

What?

        What is art?

            Art is art.

‘What is art?’ It’s a question that has preoccupied artists and philosophers a like for centuries. Attempts to tackle the subject have resulted in countless artist manifestos, philosophical treatises and, quite frankly, existential crises for those compelled to make art. Yet, pose this question to a six-year-old and the answer is simple: ‘Art is art.’

Those who regularly interact with children are all too aware of their shrewd

ability to both ask and answer questions that might intimidate even the most

qualified of adults. Typically delivered with conviction, they prove that sometimes what may appear to be a highly conceptual line of inquiry might be met with concision and confidence: qualities many of us aspire to carry through into adulthood. Yet, when it comes to the act of artmaking, this straightforwardness is often countered by an expansive and imaginative creativity – crucially, one that demands focus and attention as much as experimentation and play.

This catalogue presents a selection of work made by individuals between the ages of four and ten. Much of the work was created in 2024 at artist-led workshops run at the London gallery Wild Trumpets – a space in which young people’s artistic activities are recognised, celebrated and fostered. Here, and in this publication, the output of young artists is taken seriously and asks those who encounter the works reproduced in these pages to do the same.

For artists of any age, their work is deeply informed by their perception of their environments. Whether expressed in an abstract or figurative visual register, it is often the lived experiences of daily life that are at the fore. This enduring connection between observation, personal impression and representation ha often led to children’s art being considered primarily through the prism of psychological and developmental analysis.

In these contexts, art is understood as a tool of (un)conscious communication

through which we might decipher a child’s progress on the steps to adulthood. This catalogue asks what it means to take children’s art out of these developmental frameworks. To instead treat it as the work of young artists and address it using the same guiding principles with which we approach artworks made by their adult counterparts, encountered in museums, galleries and publications.

Throughout the catalogue, we find evidence of young artists’ varied approaches

to a wide range of themes, materials and modes of expression. Landscapes,

domestic scenes, depictions of animals and family portraits sit alongside abstract works, all evidencing the dynamic potential of colour, line and form. Collage becomes a tool through which found images are appropriated and their meanings reformulated in new contexts. Other works lay out series of pictorial icons loaded with symbolic potential, asking viewers to bring their interpretative powers to derive meaning from these personal vocabularies.

Also striking is the prevalence of written language that sits alongside imagery

in these works. While words might identify the drawn and painted forms as rainbows, family members or plants, on occasion they also indicate mood, tone

or feeling – be it love or existential assertions of ‘NOTHING...’ as is written by one young artist within a densely rendered, abstract black form. Sincerity and humour alternate, reflecting the breadth of human emotion.

Evidently, this is art that stands up to robust design critique. Compositional

experimentation lies in the considered placement of the artists’ mark-making, their grouping of subjects and employment of perspective. A variety of stylistic approaches, personal to each artist, also emerges: from forceful, expressionistic gestures to the carefully sketched lines of delicate pencil drawings. Bold minimalist offerings are offset by maximalist, full-throttle compositions carrying powerful instances of tonality, (a)symmetry, light and shadow, colour, motion and dynamic gesture.

If, as this catalogue contends, young artists’ work might be approached through

aesthetic analysis then why is it so often diminished in comparison to art made

by adults? An awareness of preconceived hierarchies of intent seems key here; the reductive assumption that there is a conceptual and formal rigour absent

from the work of young artists due to their age and lack of formal training.

Yet, we are in a moment when the wider artworld is working to challenge and

deconstruct the hierarchical categories that have led to many artists being

overlooked and marginalised due to factors including gender, race, sexuality,

disability, socio-economic background and nationality. Why not add age to this list? The result can only be a more inclusive and thus richer landscape for the

making and reception of art – one that demands we leave our preconceptions at the door and embrace a process of close-looking rooted in the very artworks

themselves.