August has already turned into one of those months where a lot seems to be happening at once. We are not even halfway through the month yet, and I feel as though I have been exhibiting, painting, reorganising, experimenting with social media and thinking about where I want my art to go next.
Sometimes being an artist is about making the work. At other times, it is about everything that surrounds the work — finding an audience, preparing exhibitions, sharing the process and working out which platforms actually feel right for you.
August has definitely been a mixture of both.
My Solo Exhibition
One of the biggest moments this month has been my Whispers of the Wild exhibition at CreateED in Kirkintilloch.
The exhibition opened on Saturday 1st August and brought together a collection of my original stag-inspired artworks.
The collection explores something I return to again and again in my work: nature, memory, stillness and the strange emotional connection we can have with the landscape and the creatures within it.
There is something about the stag that particularly interests me. It can appear powerful and imposing, but also incredibly quiet. I wanted the paintings to hold some of that contrast.
Titles such as Keeper of the Hidden Glen, Antlers Holding Dawn, When the Hills Breathe, Echoes Beneath the Antlers and The Wild Knows My Name grew from that atmosphere.
Preparing work for an exhibition always reminds me that the finished painting is only one part of being an artist. There is selecting work, pricing, labelling, photographing, transporting and installing — and then suddenly the paintings that have been living with you in the studio are out in the world having their own conversations with other people.
That is probably one of my favourite things about exhibiting.
Once the work leaves the studio, I don’t completely control how it is interpreted anymore.
And I like that.
Back in the Studio
Of course, the exhibition hasn’t meant that painting has stopped.
Quite the opposite.
I’ve continued working with mixed media, oils, collage, drawing and colour, and several new pieces have been emerging during August.
I’ve also found myself thinking a lot about titles.
Naming a painting can sometimes be almost as difficult as making it! I don’t necessarily want a title to explain exactly what somebody is looking at. I prefer it to offer a doorway into the work — something that adds another layer without closing down the viewer’s imagination.
Recent paintings have continued to move between abstraction, landscape, nature and those slightly dreamlike spaces where you aren’t completely sure whether you’re looking at somewhere real or somewhere remembered.
That uncertainty interests me.
Starting Again on TikTok
Another part of August has been getting to grips with my new TikTok account.
Starting again on a platform is a strange experience.
On one hand, you know much more than you did the first time. On the other, you are still trying to understand what the platform wants from you — particularly when algorithms, features and rules seem to change constantly.
I’ve been asking lots of questions about TikTok recently: scheduling posts, Live streaming, what artists can and can’t do when talking about their work, and how to actually turn views into people who are genuinely interested in original art.
Because views are lovely.
But as a working artist, I also want my social media to help people discover the paintings themselves.
That means finding a balance between creating interesting videos and remembering why I am there in the first place.
I want people to discover the studio, see how the paintings develop, learn a little about me as the artist and, hopefully, eventually find an original artwork that speaks to them.
I’m still experimenting.
Giving Pinterest Some Attention Again
Pinterest has also been getting a bit of a spruce-up.
For a visual artist, Pinterest feels like one of those platforms that I really should be using more.
Unlike some social media platforms where a post can disappear almost immediately, Pinterest feels much more connected to searching, collecting ideas and discovering things over time.
So I’ve been looking again at how I present my artwork there, how my boards are organised and how Pinterest might become another route back to my website and original artwork.
I even found myself asking whether you can go Live on Pinterest.
Apparently my brain has officially entered the stage where every social platform must now be investigated for its Live possibilities!
But it is all part of learning.
I’m beginning to think less about being everywhere simply for the sake of being everywhere and more about how the different parts can connect:
The studio → the artwork → the story → social media → my website → the collector.
That feels much more useful.
And Then There Is YouTube…
YouTube continues to be part of the picture too through bea creative tv.
I’ve been experimenting with studio videos and Live painting sessions, including the idea of a regular Monday evening hour in the studio.
There is something very different about longer-form video.
TikTok and Instagram can show a quick glimpse of a painting.
YouTube can allow someone to sit in the studio with me for a while.
They can watch the slower parts — drawing, painting, organising materials, preparing for an exhibition or simply working through an idea that hasn’t quite resolved itself yet.
I think there is value in showing that side of art too.
Not everything happens in sixty seconds.
What August Is Teaching Me
Perhaps the theme running through August so far is visibility.
Not visibility simply in terms of numbers, followers or algorithms, but allowing the work to be seen.
In an exhibition.
On a wall.
On a website.
Through a camera.
On Pinterest.
On TikTok.
On YouTube.
And sometimes by somebody who has never encountered my work before.
As artists, we can spend an enormous amount of time alone making things. Eventually, though, we have to allow those things to leave us.
That can be uncomfortable.
It can also be exciting.
My work has always been connected to nature, memory, imagination and the stories that sit somewhere beneath what we can immediately see. My style — Abstract Realism — gives me room to move between recognisable subjects and abstraction, using mixed media, acrylic, collage and oils to build those layers.
August feels like another layer.
The exhibition is happening. New paintings are developing. TikTok is beginning again. Pinterest is being dusted off. YouTube continues. And somewhere amongst all of that, I’m still standing in the studio making the next piece.
There is plenty of August left.
I’m curious to see where it takes me.
Beatrice Ajayi
Artist | Abstract Realism
Glasgow, Scotland
