The Ubuntu of Art

There have been thoughts about art quietly gathering in my mind for some time.

They have been there in fragments: after conversations with artists, while standing in front of paintings, while watching people encounter work for the first time, while listening to artists talk about their creative journeys. They have emerged in moments of encouragement, in moments of profound connection, and, unfortunately, also in moments when I have witnessed the opposite, artists being unkind about other artists and their work.

Some of these thoughts have been uncomfortable. Others have been deeply affirming.

But after the Arts Canterbury Cashmere Club Art Exhibition this weekend past, something seemed to crystallise.

The exhibition gave me the opportunity to have so many beautiful conversations with other artists. Conversations about art, about process, about inspiration, about the struggles of making, about why we keep doing this strange and wonderful thing we call "creating". What struck me the most was the profound generosity in those conversations, curiosity, and encouragement; a genuine interest in what another person was trying to do.

And I found myself thinking about how profoundly important those encounters are.

Because I have come to believe something quite strongly: I would not be the artist I am today without other artists. In fact, I am not sure I would be an artist at all.

That thought led me back to something much deeper.

To Ubuntu.

Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu

Ubuntu is a concept from the Bantu philosophical traditions of southern Africa. It is often translated into the familiar phrase: "I am because we are."

Or, more literally, in the expression umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu: "A person is a person through other people."

There is something extraordinarily profound about this.

It challenges the idea of the human being as an isolated, self-contained individual whose identity exists independently of everyone else.

Ubuntu suggests something different.

We become ourselves through relationship. Our humanity is formed, recognised and expressed through our encounters with other human beings. We are not simply individuals among individuals. We are relational beings.

And I have been wondering whether this might also be one of the deepest truths about becoming an artist.

An artist is an artist through other artists. That is, not instead of individuality. Not at the expense of originality.

But because individuality itself is formed through relationship.

We become ourselves because we encounter others. We see what they see. We disagree with what they see. We learn from them. We react against them. We borrow. We experiment. We question. We absorb. We discard. We return.

We discover something of our own voice somewhere within the enormous conversation that is art.

No artist emerges from nowhere. Every artist stands within a lineage.

Sometimes that lineage is obvious: teachers, mentors, artistic movements, particular artists whose influence can be clearly traced.

Sometimes it's much more subtle. An inspiring conversation. A painting seen years ago. A colour someone used. A way someone handled light. A person who said, "Please keep going." A person who believed in us before we believed in ourselves.

These things become part of us.

And then, somehow, we carry them forward.

We don't make art alone

There's a romantic mythology surrounding the artist.

We imagine the solitary genius: alone in the studio, answerable only to some mysterious inner creative force, producing something entirely original and entirely their own.

There's some truth in solitude. Making art does require periods of aloneness. There are hours when it's just you, the canvas, the brush and the silence. Nobody else can make the decisions for you. Nobody else can see exactly what you see. Nobody else can make the particular mark that you’re trying to make.

But the fact that the physical act of painting may happen alone doesn't mean that the artist exists alone.

Quite the opposite.

The artist arrives at that solitary moment carrying an entire community within them. We carry the artists we’ve encountered. We carry our teachers. We carry our cultures. We carry our histories. We carry the landscapes that shaped us. We carry the books we’ve read and the paintings we've seen. We carry conversations, encouragement, criticism, memories. We carry the people who told us that perhaps we should try. Even the decision to pick up a brush is often the consequence of somebody, somewhere, having made us believe that we could.

The solitary artist is therefore never entirely solitary. We create alone, but we become through others.

And that distinction matters.

Art as a conversation across time

One of the things I love about art is that it's a conversation that doesn't require everyone involved to be alive at the same time. An artist can speak to another artist across centuries. A painting can alter the way someone sees hundreds of years after it was made. A mark made by someone long ago can influence a person who has never heard their voice. Ideas travel. Ways of seeing travel. Techniques travel. Stories travel. Philosophies travel.

And art is the force that carries them.

In many traditional communities, knowledge wasn’t necessarily contained within books or institutions. It's lived within people. It was transmitted through storytelling, observation, participation, conversation and repeated practice. Knowledge was relational.

And I think something similar happens among artists. We learn by being around one another. We watch, listen, ask and experiment. We share what we’ve discovered. We tell someone what worked for us. We tell them what didn't. We talk about materials and technique, but we also talk about the much more difficult questions:

• Why are we making this?

• What are we trying to say?

• Why does this particular subject matter to us?

• Why does one painting feel alive and another feel dead?

• Why does one colour move us and another leave us cold?

• Why do we keep returning to the same subject?

• What does it mean to make something beautiful?

• What does it mean to make something meaningful?

• What does art actually do?

These conversations are part of artistic becoming.

The artist is always becoming

I think there is a profound danger in believing that we’ve arrived. The moment an artist believes they have nothing left to learn, something closes. Perhaps this is where ego becomes particularly destructive.

Ego says: I already know.

Curiosity says: What can I discover?

Ego says: My way is the right way.

Humility says: There are other ways of seeing.

Ego says: I am better than them.

Ubuntu asks: What might I learn from them?

There is a paradox here.

The more secure we become in our own artistic identity, the more willing we should perhaps become to learn. Because confidence and ego are not the same thing.

Confidence allows us to say: This is my voice.

Ego insists: My voice is the only voice that matters.

One creates. The other constricts, even destructs.

An artist who becomes too attached to their own authority eventually stops listening.

And an artist who stops listening stops growing.

I want to remain teachable. I want to be surprised. I want another artist to show me something I had never considered. I want to encounter work that makes me question my assumptions. I want to walk into an exhibition and leave seeing the world slightly differently.

Because I think this is part of the privilege of being an artist: We get to keep becoming.

The vulnerability of putting a worldview on a wall

Perhaps this is also why I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with the casual cruelty that can sometimes enter conversations about art.

An artwork isn’t simply an object. Of course, physically, it’s an object. It's canvas, pigment, paper, wood, charcoal, oil, acrylic, graphite, clay or some other material.

But that description tells us very little about what an artwork actually represents.

Behind an artwork is a person. A person who looked, thought, felt something, who made choices. A person who spent hours, sometimes hundreds of hours, working through doubt and those choices. A person who persisted. A person who eventually decided to place the work somewhere where other people could see it.

That final act is extraordinarily vulnerable. Because what we put on the exhibition wall isn’t merely our technical ability. It's something of our way of seeing. Every artwork says, in some form: This is how I experienced this. This is what I noticed. This mattered enough to me that I wanted to make something from it. This is my interpretation of a small part of the world.

That’s an intimate offering.

It doesn't mean the work is beyond criticism.

But perhaps it means that criticism should be approached with a certain consciousness of the person behind it.

We never encounter art from nowhere

There’s another layer to this.

An artist makes a work. Then the artwork leaves the artist. And something fascinating happens. The viewer brings themselves to it.

We don't encounter art as blank slates. We bring our own histories, childhoods, cultures, beliefs, memories. We bring our losses, our experiences of beauty, pain. The way we look at art is informed by our expectations, prejudices, knowledge and even our ignorance. All of these things become part of the act of seeing.

This is one reason art is so much more complicated than simply asking whether a painting is "good" or "bad".

The artist's intention is one part of the encounter. The physical artwork is another. The viewer's interpretation is yet another.

Meaning emerges somewhere within that meeting.

This is close to what hermeneutics asks us to consider: that understanding is never entirely detached or objective. We approach things from somewhere. We interpret through the horizons of our own experience.

The artist looks at a peony and sees one thing. I might look at the same peony and see something entirely different. Another person might see childhood. Someone else might see mortality. Someone else might simply see a beautiful flower. Someone might dislike the painting entirely.

None of those responses necessarily invalidates the others.

They reveal something about the encounter between artwork and viewer.

And this is precisely what makes art so extraordinary.

You don't have to like my art

I think this needs to be said very plainly: You don't have to like my art.

You don't have to like anyone's art. You don't have to understand it. You don't have to agree with the artist's choices. You don't have to think the composition works. You don't have to enjoy the colour palette. You don't have to be moved by the subject. You are entitled to your response.

In fact, art needs disagreement. It needs different perspectives. It needs people who challenge it.

But there’s a distinction between saying: "This work doesn't speak to me", and saying: "This artist is terrible."

There’s a distinction between thoughtful critique and humiliation. There’s a distinction between disagreement and contempt. There’s a distinction between having an opinion and deliberately diminishing another human being.

And I think artists, of all people, should understand that distinction.

Because we know. We know what it is to doubt.

We know what it is to stand in front of something we have made and suddenly see only everything that is wrong with it. We know the internal voice that asks:

Who do you think you are?

Are you really an artist?

Is this any good?

What if everyone thinks this is ridiculous?

We know what it is to put work on an exhibition wall and wait. And that’s why cruelty between artists feels particularly sad to me.

Because we have already lived the vulnerability. We should know better.

The unseen damage of unkindness

Perhaps one of the most troubling things about cruelty in the artistic community is that we rarely get to see its consequences.

We hear the comment. We don't see what happens afterwards. We don't see the artist going home and questioning themselves. We don't see the painting that's subsequently abandoned. We don't see the artist who stops painting or exhibiting. We don't see the person who decides they're not good enough. We don't see the sketchbook that remains closed. We don't see the brushstroke that is never made, or the art that never breathes its life into our human existence.

The damage can be invisible. And sometimes it lasts for years.

Artists can be extraordinarily sensitive creatures, not because we’re weak, but because making art requires sensitivity. We have to notice, to pay attention, to remain open to experience, to allow ourselves to be affected by the world in order to create.

That openness is part of our strength. But it's also part of our vulnerability.

And so words can penetrate more deeply than we sometimes realise. Especially when they come from another artist. Because another artist understands the terrain.

They know what it took to make the work. They know the doubts, the effort, the courage.

Which is why I believe artists have a particular responsibility to be careful with one another.

I saw this again at the exhibition ...

At the Cashmere Club Exhibition this weekend past, one of the things that stayed with me wasn’t a particular painting, but a very special person.

I encountered an artist who was questioning almost every brushstroke. You could see the uncertainty. That familiar internal interrogation:

Is this right?

Is this good enough?

Should I change it?

What if people don't like it?

And I found myself saying something very simple: Please keep going. Not because I knew that every brushstroke was perfect. Not because I could guarantee that everyone would love the work.

But because I know how easy it is for an artist to lose their own voice when they become too concerned with the judgement of others.

Sometimes what another artist needs isn't another opinion.

Sometimes they need someone to remind them that they’re allowed to find their own way, to find their own voice, and to do that with encouragement and kindness.

That, too, is part of community.

The opposite of artistic jealousy is generosity

There is another difficult subject here: success.

Artists exhibit together. We’re inevitably compared. There are prizes, sales, public reviews. There are people who receive attention. There are people whose work sells immediately and people who sell nothing. There are artists who win awards and artists who don't.

There are moments when someone else's success can quietly awaken our own insecurities. It's fundamentally human.

But perhaps this is where Ubuntu asks something difficult of us:

• Can I celebrate your success without experiencing it as my failure?

• Can I look at another artist's sold painting and feel genuinely happy for them?
• Can I celebrate an award that I didn’t win?
• Can I admire someone else's skill without immediately measuring myself against it?
• Can I say: "That is beautiful …" without adding: "but I could do it better."
  

This's not always easy. But I think it’s essential.

Another artist's success does not diminish mine. There is no finite quantity of artistic worth in the world. Your painting selling doesn't prevent mine from selling.

Your artistic contribution to an exhibition doesn’t make mine less important. Your talent doesn't remove mine.

Your success can simply be your success.

And perhaps I can be generous enough to celebrate it.

Art isn't a competition for one way of seeing

We need artists precisely because we do not all see the world in the same way. Imagine if every artist painted the same things in the same manner. Imagine if every artist pursued the same aesthetic. Imagine if there were one accepted definition of beauty.

Art would become terribly dull.

Difference is not a threat to art.

Difference is art.

One person paints flowers. Another paints buildings. One is interested in abstraction. Another in hyperrealism. One is interested in political questions. Another wants to paint quiet domestic objects. One wants to disturb. Another wants to comfort. One wants to document. Another wants to dream. One wants to make beauty. Another wants to dismantle our assumptions about beauty.

All of these can have a place.

The fact that an artwork isn't my way of seeing doesn't make it invalid.

It simply means it belongs to another horizon.

And perhaps encountering that horizon is one of the gifts art gives us.

A quiet Ubuntu code for artists

Perhaps what I'm really searching for is a kind of informal artistic ethic. Not a set of rules about what art should look like. Not a hierarchy of styles, or a prescription for what artists should believe. Simply an ethic about how we treat the human beings who make art.

Perhaps it might look something like this:

1. Respect the person. Before you judge the work, remember the human being who made it.
2. Respect the labour. A painting may take ten hours, one hundred hours, or a lifetime of learning. You don't have to like the result to respect the commitment.
3. Respect the vulnerability. The artist has allowed you into something of their inner world. Treat that invitation carefully.
4. Respect difference. Another artist doesn't have to see the world as you do. Their difference isn't an attack on you.
5. Respect another person's worldview. An artwork can embody a philosophy, a history, an experience or a way of understanding that’s not your own. You can disagree without degrading it.
6. Critique generously. If you offer criticism, make it useful. Ask whether your words will help the artist grow or simply make yourself feel superior.
7. Don't confuse cruelty with honesty.“I’m just being honest" is not an excuse for being unkind. Honesty without compassion can become brutality.
8. Don't make another artist smaller to make yourself feel larger. Your worth doesn't require their diminishment.
9. Don't let jealousy become contempt. Jealousy is something we can acknowledge and work through. Contempt is a choice.
10. Celebrate success. When another artist succeeds, celebrate the fact that art itself is flourishing.
11. Share what you know. What you have learned can become part of someone else's becoming.
12. Remain teachable. There's always something another artist can teach you.

And perhaps most importantly: Remember Ubuntu. I am an artist because we are a community of artists together.

The danger of becoming the artist who knows everything

There is another reason this matters to me.

Ego is not simply unpleasant. It's fundamentally limiting. If I become convinced that I'm already sufficiently accomplished, sufficiently knowledgeable, sufficiently talented, then I no longer need to look closely.

I no longer need to listen, experiment, and risk failure. I no longer need other people. And without other people, something important begins to disappear.

The artist stops becoming. We become fixed.

It's important to remember that art is movement. Art is exploration. Art is curiosity. Art is uncertainty.

Art is asking a question without necessarily knowing the answer.

That means that humility isn't an optional virtue for an artist. It's an important part of the practice.

To say I don't know can be profoundly creative.

To say show me can open a door.

To say tell me what you see can transform a conversation.

To say I had never thought about it that way is an act of artistic growth.

The community is part of the art

I think this is what became so apparent to me at the Cashmere Club Exhibition.

The beautiful thing wasn't simply the collection of artworks hanging on the walls. It was the human exchange surrounding them. The conversations, laughter, questions, and encouragement. It was found in the artists talking to one another. People sharing stories about their work, discovering something new.

It was found in people standing in front of paintings and finding joy.

The work became a catalyst for connection. And perhaps that's one of the things art does at its deepest level.

It brings us into relationship.

The artwork creates an opening through which one person can encounter another person's way of seeing.

The artist says: This is what I saw.

The viewer responds: This is what I see.

And somewhere between those two perspectives, something new can happen.

A conversation. A question. A memory. An emotion. A disagreement. A moment of recognition. A moment of wonder.

That is community.

We inherit, and then we pass on

There is something humbling about recognising how much of ourselves comes from others. None of us creates entirely from nothing. We inherit. We receive. We're influenced. We're taught. We absorb. And eventually, if we are fortunate, we have something to give back.

This is true of artistic technique. It's true of artistic philosophy. It's true of encouragement. It's true of confidence. It's true of knowledge.

Someone gave something to us. We carry it. And then we give something to someone else.

That's how traditions survive. That's how communities become rich. That's how culture moves through generations.

Perhaps an artist's legacy is therefore not only the paintings they leave behind. Perhaps it's also in the artists they encouraged, the knowledge they shared, the confidence they gave. Perhaps it's in the conversations they started, the doors they opened and people who kept painting because someone was kind and softly encouraged in the darkness of self-doubt: Please don't stop.

I am because we are

When I think about my own journey as an artist, I cannot separate it from other people.

I cannot separate it from those who encouraged me, or those artists whose work made me want to learn. From people who shared knowledge, or the conversations that changed the way I looked. From people who saw something in my work when I could not quite see it myself.

I'm not a self-made artist. None of us really is.

We're community-made. We're conversation-made. We're influence-made. We're encouragement-made. We're challenge-made. We're made through all the people who have crossed our creative paths and left something behind.

And so perhaps being an artist carries a responsibility beyond making the work.

Perhaps our responsibility is also to become the kind of artistic community that allows other people to become themselves. To make room, to encourage, to listen, to teach, to learn, to celebrate. To challenge without humiliating. To disagree without destroying. To remain humble enough to know that another person's way of seeing may contain something we have not yet understood.

And to remember that when we help another artist flourish, we do not lose anything.

We add something profoundly human to the world.

The Ubuntu of art

There's so much in the world at present that seems to pull us away from one another.

There's division, comparison, comparison, jealousy, contempt, wars, hatred, the reduction of people into categories. The assumption that if someone else is elevated, we must somehow be diminished.

Perhaps what ails us is, at least in part, a forgetting of our profound interconnectedness. A forgetting of the truth of Ubuntu.

The recognition that the person in front of us isn't an abstraction. They are a person. They have a history, hopes, and fears. They have worked hard, they've struggled, loved, perhaps failed. They've tried and tried again.

They are human. And so am I.

The same is true in the artistic community. The artist standing beside me isn't merely a competitor for a place on an exhibition wall. They're another person trying to make sense of this extraordinary world. They have something to say. They see something differently. Their work may not speak to me. I may not understand it. I may even dislike it. But their humanity does not depend upon my approval. And neither does mine.

Perhaps the most beautiful thing we can do for one another is therefore not to agree, but to recognise.

To look at another artist and say:

I see you. I recognise the courage it took to make this. I recognise the time and work you have put in. I recognise the unique and profound person you are. I may see differently, but I respect your right to see differently.

That is Ubuntu.

And perhaps that's also what our art community needs.

Not a community in which everyone agrees. Not a community without criticism. Not a community without ambition. But a community in which ambition does not require cruelty, criticism doesn't require contempt, and success doesn't require someone else to fail. A community in which artists can remain curious. A community in which artists can keep becoming. A community in which we understand that another person's light doesn't extinguish ours.

It adds to the light.

And perhaps that's why I keep painting. Not simply to make objects. Not simply to sell paintings. Not simply to put my particular vision onto a canvas. But to participate in something larger than myself. To enter a conversation that began long before me and will continue long after me. To learn from those around me. To offer something of what I've learned to those who come after. To look at the world carefully and kindly. To make something from what I see. And, perhaps most importantly, to create a little more space for others to do the same.

Because ultimately, art is not only about the artist. It is about the relationship between artist, artwork and world. It's about the meeting between one person's way of seeing and another person's way of seeing. It's about the conversations that emerge between us. It's about what we learn from one another. It's about the courage to offer something of ourselves. And it's about what happens when that offering is received with generosity.

I am because we are. Perhaps the artist is, too.

I am an artist because other artists have helped me become one.

And if that is true, then perhaps the greatest measure of our success is not only what we create.

It is what we help one another become.