We use social media for different things--keeping up with friends, sharing the highlights of our lives, searching for inspiration, etc. One of my favourite ways to use social media is to follow artists/creatives/makers--I love seeing the amazing creativity that people do, and I love learning about art in general, from photography to graphic design to architecture. A lot of the creative content I ingest is based out of Instagram. So here are ten of the most inspiring and interesting art-oriented accounts that I follow on Instagram--I hope that you will give them a look, and maybe even consider following them to jazz up your usual feed of food, concerts, selfies, and outfits.
1. Colossal
Colossal, aka This Is Colossal, is a website dedicated to showcasing unusual but beautiful artists and art projects. I frequently like their posts on Facebook and like to go exploring their articles and featured artists. However, if Facebook is the aptly named "train of misery" to you, then you can follow @Colossal on Instagram and get the same content that they post on their Facebook. Colossal does an excellent job of curating beautiful and unknown work, from paper-cutting artist Annie Vought
to visual artist Miguel Chevalier.
Colossal is one of my art/creativity staples when it comes to reading and browsing on the internet.
2. Designbooom
As much as I love Colossal, I love Designboom just as much, if not even a little more. Designboom is a magazine that is also dedicated to featuring artists, mostly in architecture and design. Designboom varies from Colossal because its content is typically more technical-based, with sleek, modern work that highlights innovation and ingenuity. Don't let that intimidate you--most of the work that @Designboom curates for their Instagram is completely new and foreign to me, but I still find it beautiful and interesting, seeing artists who are experimenting and pushing the limits, like this beautiful chapel
and this architectural/visual installation.
Designboom is the place to go if you're looking for beauty, innovation, and design.
3. Tobi Shinobi
Okay, so first of all, I didn't realise that Tobi Shinobi was actually his name--"@tobishinobi" is his Instagram handle, and I thought that it was just some weird personal handle. But it's actually his name. But that aside, Shinobi is a phenomenal photographer. His photographs are imbued with his style of street photography--symmetry, architecture, and beauty in dirtiness/grittiness. And even better, his work is recognised--he's worked with many major brands, like Adidas and Microsoft, and now is a global ambassador for Sony. Shinobi's photos are beautiful, visually interesting, and challenging--just scrolling through his Instagram feed is beautiful and arresting.
If you like anything photography/urban/city/architecture/symmetry-related, you should definitely check him out.
4. Jacob Jonas The Company
Jacob Jonas is the unique combination of dancer and photographer. He and his wife, Jill, travel around to choreograph and document different dance projects, under the umbrella of his non-profit, @JacobJonasTheCompany. As someone from a dance background, I think that his work is fantastic, with his mission to show human beauty and community embedded into his photographs. Jonas uses dance, perspective, and light/shadow to make visually stunning pieces of art that are elegant, but also have a raw quality to them and their humanness, like this photo at the Getty Museum.
5. 1924 US
Out of all of these Instagram accounts I'm recommending, it's most probable that you've heard of @1924us. Over half a million people follow this page, for photography/aesthetic/art/hipness/travel/etc., etc. The man behind this unprecedented page is Christian Watson, a photographer, traveller, and artist. Outside of being an Instagram star, Watson has built an extensive empire as an artist and brander, working for hundreds of companies around the world to create logos and visual presence. 1924us is the epitome of the classy, beautiful, artistic Instagram feed that so many people try so hard to achieve. The Instagram-stereotype accounts usually bother me, but I do have well-founded admiration for Watson and his work. His art, both inside and outside of his Instagram, is beautiful and unpretentious, and I think that counts for something.
6. Konsta Punkka
You may not know his name, but you may have seen some of his photographs. Konsta Punkka is a wildlife photographer, with the specialty of being able to get up close and personal with his subjects. Punkka is based out of Helsinki, Finland. Besides his unusual talents as a photographer, @kpunkka is also unusual because of his young age of 22, considering how he is recognised around the world, both on and off the internet, as a brilliant photographer. Punkka travels extensively for his wildlife and landscape photographs, like this Chilean fox.
I personally have a mild adversion to the too perfect photos that are featured in places like an Apple Desktop, but while Punkka is arguably that kind of photographer, I don't grudge him for the beauty that he has the gift to capture in his landscapes and his wildlife.
7. Musée du Louvre
Musée du Louvre is, well, the one and only Louvre, the museum of art in Paris, France. I only recently started following this page, both to help educate/expose myself to the arts, and because it is such a beautiful and famous museum. @museelouvre is devoted to featuring the art on the walls and the architectural beauty and intrigue of the building itself. Also, everything is in French--I'm sure knowing French would help, but you can still appreciate the art without being able to read the long captions. (Something a guide at the Met recently told me: people are often too concerned with reading the signage to actually look and take in the art itself.)
8. Designspiration
Designspiration features a menagerie of the arts, mostly focusing on typography/design and drawing. They mostly curate from online, posting about random artists who are doing great artistic work. One of the fun things about Designspiration is that usually their posts are videos, reposted from the original artist, and it lets you see the process that went into crafting a finished product. I like @designspiration a great deal because of my own personal penchant for all things typography. But even if you don't have much to do with typography, it's still a fun and beautiful account, especially if you love doodling and drawing (and art in general). It's hard to do the account justice--everything is different but beautiful, and it's a great pleasure to just scroll through their feed and see the things people can crate with pencil, ink, and paint.
9. Trash Hand
Trash Hand is another phenomenal urban photographer, based out of Chicago. Frankly, I have no idea what his actual name is--it's not on any of his social media, or even his website. But his anonymity does not detract at all from his work as a photographer. He's similar to Tobi Shinobi, with cities and perspectives, but Trash Hand is very much his own artist. I love the intrigue of city photography, and @trashhand certainly does it well.
10. Brian Kesinger
I'm ending this list with one of my favourite illustrators, Brian Kesinger. Kesinger is an artist for Disney and Marvel, and has gained a large following in part to his creative and fun mash-ups, especially ones to do with Star Wars.
@briankesinger is an extremely good artist technically, but he is also extremely creative and has a good sense of humour. There's a reason I've been following him for so long.
I would absolutely encourage you to check all of these accounts--and more. Who we follow and what we do on social media reflects how we view it. A lot of people get sucked into the misery of places like Facebook with its raging political fights, or the misery of startling and disheartening news titles. But there's also a lot of good and beauty in social media. You need to be reminded that people can make good and beautiful things--it's not all about destroying the bad, but creating the good as well. Art shouldn't just be an escape, but a reminder, a faith-restorer, because it can minister to the soul.
