Art Rabbithole

We often hear that art is self-expression. It sounds simple, even romantic: the artist pouring their inner world onto a canvas, into a song, or through words. But if you think about it, art is never created in isolation. It’s not just about what’s inside us; it’s also about everything that has shaped us.

From childhood, we’re surrounded by influences. Families give us language and stories. Communities share traditions and ways of perceiving the world. Every day, we’re flooded with images, sounds, and information from the wider world. We don’t create this material, yet it leaves its mark on us. Over time, these layers of influence begin to form the raw material of our imagination.

That’s where art begins—not with a blank slate, but with a self that has been filled, stretched, and shaped by countless encounters. The role of the artist is to filter this constant flow, to notice what resonates, and to give it new form. In other words, art is the self making sense of the world and reflecting it back, both for the artist and for others.

Even works of wild imagination aren’t born out of thin air. A dreamlike image, a surreal character, or an abstract form—all of these can be traced back to lived moments, stories we’ve heard, things we’ve seen, or feelings we’ve carried. Imagination is essentially a form of transformation: combining, remixing, and reshaping the influences we’ve absorbed.

Seen this way, the artist isn’t a solitary genius but a participant in an ongoing conversation. Each work of art is a response to culture, to history, to memory, to the present moment. The originality lies not in escaping influences, but in the unique way each artist reassembles them into something new.

And that’s why it matters to know your sources. The more aware you are of the forces that have shaped you—family, culture, books, music, politics, even daily experiences—the more clearly you’ll see what fuels your creativity. Far from limiting you, this awareness enriches your work, giving it depth and a solid foundation.

So perhaps art is not simply “self-expression” after all. It is the self in dialogue with the world, the self reshaping the things that have already shaped it. When you understand that, you see that art is both deeply personal and profoundly connected to everything around you.