Katy Hessel
Katy Hessel is one of the top Art / Design influencer with 447920 audience and 1.23% engagement rate on Instagram. Check out the full profile and start to collaborate.
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???????? We meet Katy Hessel @katy.hessel of @thegreatwomenartists to discuss her incredible new book How To Live An Artful Life. The year ahead is a gift that has been given to you. What might you do with it? Dive into the year with the wisdom of artists. Gathered from interviews, personal conversations, books and talks, How to Live an Artful Life moves through the months of the year offering you thoughts, reflections and encouragements from artists such as Marina Abramovic, Nan Goldin, Lubaina Himid, Louise Bourgeois and many more. With a thought for every day of the year, whether looking for beginnings in January, freedom in summer, or transformation as the nights draw in, this is a book of words to cherish. The year is full of the promise of work that has yet to be written, paintings that are yet to be painted, people who have yet to meet, talk, or fall in love. With this book in hand, pay attention, and see the world anew. Go out and find it, taste it, seize it, and live it – artfully. ???? Follow @Katy.Hessel on Instagram. ????How To Live An Artful Life is published by @penguinukbooks from 6th November. ???? Listen to @TalkArt podcast, stream now: @Spotify @ApplePodcasts
2025-11-01
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???????? We meet Katy Hessel @katy.hessel of @thegreatwomenartists to discuss her incredible new book How To Live An Artful Life. The year ahead is a gift that has been given to you. What might you do with it? Dive into the year with the wisdom of artists. Gathered from interviews, personal conversations, books and talks, How to Live an Artful Life moves through the months of the year offering you thoughts, reflections and encouragements from artists such as Marina Abramovic, Nan Goldin, Lubaina Himid, Louise Bourgeois and many more. With a thought for every day of the year, whether looking for beginnings in January, freedom in summer, or transformation as the nights draw in, this is a book of words to cherish. The year is full of the promise of work that has yet to be written, paintings that are yet to be painted, people who have yet to meet, talk, or fall in love. With this book in hand, pay attention, and see the world anew. Go out and find it, taste it, seize it, and live it – artfully. ???? Follow @Katy.Hessel on Instagram. ????How To Live An Artful Life is published by @penguinukbooks from 6th November. ???? Listen to @TalkArt podcast, stream now: @Spotify @ApplePodcasts
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WOW ! ???? Flora Yukhnovich (@flora_yukhnovich)'s new exhibition @HauserWirth LA is something else. An incredible commentary on the world and political climate of today, its title "Bacchanalia" – referencing the wild/ drunken festival honouring Bacchus, Roman god of wine – speaks to excess and greed in every way. (It should be interesting that as we speak, Trump is tearing down parts of the White House to make way for his white/gold Versailles-style ballroom...) The paintings tackle this head on, while also referencing the history of LA – with cinema/studios, Disney, advertisement, artifice, as well as classical sources that get me to think about 'empire' then and now (what has actually changed?). Take "Party in the USA" – which, if looked at from far away, feels like a verdant landscape. This work began with the Columbia pictures logo (image 3), with the Athena-like figure holding up a torch standing on the Grecian-like steps. Everything is building up to the central puff of smoke in the middle – like the build up to a film – and an orb that glows and glistens as if we are about to get to the core of the picture. Could that be a Trumpian figure on its left with orange hair, trampling over everyone (like Ruben's "Tiger Hunt") reaching for the main event? What even exists there? Or "Luncheon", which began with the Gucci for Flora perfume advert (starring Miley Cyrus next to the Hollywood sign), and a gift that the artist continuously receives for Christmas (due to her name), which as she says "became unbearable... too much of a good thing". There's the Tower of Babel, "Tarantella" that refers to the dance women did after being bitten by tarantulas which caused them hysteria (!!), trifles, peaches, the decadent emperor who drowned his guests in petals... This exhibition is ALIVE with excess, movement, with strokes that dance in all their synchronicity; bodies, cherubs... all morphing in and out of abstraction. It's a marvel. GO SEE. Need to write about this more! THIS SATURDAY, 12:30, we're doing a talk @hauserwirthlosangeles ! Come by! • #FloraYukhnovich #WomenArtists
2025-11-01
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TOVE JANSSON ✨???? Painter, illustrator, novelist, children's writer, world-builder cultural icon. She made comics, paintings, novels, magazine covers, political cartoons, short stories, greeting cards, and the world of the Moomins ???? ...and is the entry for 1 November for my upcoming book, "How To Live An Artful Life" which is out THIS THURSDAY ???? Pre-order your copy via the linkinbio! Born in Helsinki, Jansson studied in Paris and Switzerland, and lived most of her life on a remote island off the coast of Finland. She turned to the Moomins in the aftermath of the Second World War, publishing The Moomins and the Great Flood in (1945) Comet in Moominland (1946) ???????? While these were great stories for children, they also remind us about the joys and lessons of being grown up, too. As we settle into November, the season with which many of us retreat inside, I'm thinking about Tove, and her words about building that core of safety. Who or what do you already have near you? Who or what do you want to keep safe over this winter? Want to know more? Don't miss my interview with Tove's niece, Sophia – who was the inspiration behind "The Summer Book" – for the GWA Podcast ???? • #ToveJansson #WomenArtists
2025-11-01
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HAPPY HALLOWEEN ✨????✨ from Remedios Varo (the Spanish-born painter who spent from 1941 until her death living in Mexico City “surrounded by cats, stones, crystals and talismans”) and her best friend Leonora Carrington ????????☄️???? Together, they studied and practised ancient forms of witchcraft, and their paintings, to me, are imbued with magic, and their subjects seem to possess ancient and mystical knowledge! Both artists believed in the magical power of art, seeing painting as an ‘alchemical’ act. In other words: paint being something that stems from a crushed pigment, transformed into liquid and then into something solid again: a painting! ???? As Carrington writes in my upcoming book, "How To Live An Artful Life" (image 4 ~ linkinbio); and Varo, who said: "The dream world and the real world are the same.” ????✨ Want to know more? Check out a GWA Podcast episode on Varo as told by @terearcq / and Carrington as told by Deborah Levy or Chloe Aridjis! Happy Halloween ????????✨???? • #RemediosVaro #LeonoraCarrington #WomenArtists
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Paying my respects to the coolest artist who ever lived: Leonor Fini (1907–1996) ahead of tonight's talk on the iconography of WITCHES at @pallanthousegallery ✨✨✨ Thanks to @levygorvydayan in London for exhibiting this artist - @_leonorfini_ - who dug deep to underworlds and brought us back images of magic and alchemy at its highest; proto-punk portraits of women as sphinxes, magicians, and angels; figures on the threshold between life and death, dreams and consciousness; elegant men in typically gender reversed roles! Born in Buenos Aires in 1907, Fini fled to Italy as a child with her mother to escape her domineering Catholic father, who at one point tried to kidnap her (so she disguised as a boy, influencing her lifelong fascination with dressing up and masks). After suffering from conjunctivitis, had her eyes bandaged for months which, according to her, let her look deep inside her imagination. Exposed to hundreds of books and renaissance art, she taught herself to paint and landed in Paris in the 1930s... GO SEE! Also, a PSA to say that she's also in the upcoming book too... ???????? linkinbio! Want to know more? Don't miss episode 47 on Fini with @alycemahon ???????????????? • #LeonorFini #WomenArtists
2025-11-01
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TODAY on the GWA Podcast ???? I interview curator, writer, and cultural trailblazer, Ekow Eshun (@ekoweshun), on the women writers and artists who have influenced his life and career! Toni Morrison (1931–2019) Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) Wangechi Mutu (b.1972) Ellen Gallagher (b.1965) Liz Johnson Artur (1964) ✨✨✨✨✨ Born in London in 1968, Eshun has been at the forefront of creative culture for decades: beginning his career at The Face/ Arena Magazine, before becoming the director of the ICA. He has curated exhibitions: "In the Black Fantastic" @hayward.gallery – of visionary Black artists that explored myth, science fiction, and fantasy as a zone of creative liberation, and "The Time Is Always Now", a study of the Black figure and its representation in art – @nationalportraitgallery, and beyond! He is the author of “Black Gold of the Sun: Searching for Home in England and Africa” (2006) and "The Strangers", a stunning work of creative nonfiction that tells the story of five pioneering Black men. But today Eshun and I meet ahead of a new exhibition he has curated, titled "The Clearing" (ft. @nengiomuku, @solaolulode, and more), inspired by Toni Morrison, in Tokyo ???????? So for this special episode we are going to deep dive into the women writers and artists who have influenced his life and career... and wow is he an incredible and infectious thinker and speaker on art and ideas... As Eshun says, “The great thing about working with artists is they don’t walk a straight line or think along linear paths; they think in patterns, allowing us to approach long-established conversations from a novel perspective.” LINKINBIO ???? Thank you to @famm_mougins for the support! • #EkowEshun #WomenArtists
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ELIZABETH MURRAY (1940– 2007) ❤️ was a pioneering American artist who, in the late 60s, was at the centre of the New York art world. It was time when everything about painting was being re-established. Murray contributed to this by defying all traditions: upending the rigidity of the four corner-canvas by introducing to it a whole new shape, and, by fusing cartoons with Cubism, blended both art history and popular culture (after all, it was the era of Pop!) ⭐️ Murray is today's entry in my upcoming book, "How To Live An Artful Life" (11 days til publication ~ pre-order your copy via the linkinbio!). I love what she says about finding the human behind the art, and trying to understand someone - for who they were - through how they applied their medium. Like how they pressed the clay, or made that line of paint. It's extraordinary that we can understand so much about someone from these gestures - and converse with those who are no longer here. Art history is a record of how an individual saw the world, and through that, we can still get to know them. • #ElizabethMurray #WomenArtists
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Happy 80th BIRTHDAY to the legend Maggi Hambling ! ! ! ???????? She was the 11th artist I interviewed for the GWA Podcast (linkinbio to listen) and what an artist to start with: formidable and trailblazing. She must have lit up at least 12 cigarettes during our interview (!), and following our chat showed me her bird-clock-themed bathroom ???? Hambling has been working for six-decades-and-counting, in painting, drawing, public sculpture, and more. Her work responds to the essence of human life and emotion: the simultaneous presence of chaos and control, life and death. One of my favourite of her works is “Scallop” that sits on Aldeburgh Beach with the inscription: “I hear those voices that will not be drowned” ✨????✨ Made in 2003 to commemorate composer and past Suffolk resident, Benjamin Britten (who used to take his afternoon walks along this beach), the shell displays a quote from Britten’s opera, Peter Grimes. Much of Hambling’s work is a conversation with the sea. A born and bred Suffolk resident, she is known for her sublime seascapes and powerful portraits ???? Always one to give her viewer some sort of immediate reaction (!!), whether that be physical, emotional, or at times, controversial, Maggi’s work makes us contemplate humanity. But what I love most about this piece is how it gathers people together. She also, of course, features in the upcoming book... !! ???? • #MaggiHambling #WomenArtists
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