Art as a Vehicle for Connection

Love Me or I'll Turn to Dust

I create to connect with myself, in the past, the present, and the future. But that is not all.

While creating this piece, I thought about our insatiable appetite for attention and acknowledgement, especially on social media, and how this seemingly vain hunger stems from our fundamental need for human connection.

Each of us artists, including myself, creates primarily from the pure need to do so, but we also send our creations out into the ether, hoping they will land in front of eyes like our own, thus building a bridge between us.

What we don't often realize is that the "serve and return" mechanism that helps a caregiver and child form a healthy relationship extends into other areas of our adult lives. The internet, however, transforms this dynamic. No longer face-to-face, we stand in a virtual moving crowd of others with identical needs. Who notices us waving, and who potentially values our voice, is now determined by an algorithm that prioritizes the platform's interests, not ours.

We keep returning to serve, though the return doesn't always come as expected. It's often inconsistent. Eventually, we either cease to find value in showing up and move on, or we internalize the lack of reaction as rejection. That is when things can turn dark.

This algorithm—the great gatekeeper of both meaningful interactions and fleeting glances—can break our spirit, trapping us in destructive cycles of dopamine-seeking behavior. We return online repeatedly for a few likes, while feeling increasingly undervalued and invisible.

We ask ourselves: Is our art that awful? No.

The problem is we try to thrive in a system built to feed on fear and controversy. And more often than not, the people we hope to find cannot see us.

Social media operates on a promise: come and connect with your friends, and if you don't have any, you can meet new ones here. Web3 has promised us even more: "Are you an artist? Come and see how easy it is to make a buck."

We come with expectations already set. We see proof of these promises on the timeline often—cabals we feel excluded from, and sales that weren't ours. We turn bitter, reject the system, and say something must be wrong with it.

But it's good to step back, gain perspective, find a plan B, and even quit socials altogether. The truth is, being an artist is hard in many ways. But it is also really rewarding if you take expectations out of the equation completely.

I don't expect to connect, I hope to. And that puts control back into my hands.

AI source imagery versus the finished collage in Photoshop

"Love Me, or I'll Turn to Dust" is digital collage created in Photoshop using AI (Midjourney) sourced imagery.

The artwork explores the profound longing for genuine connection and vulnerable self-worth experienced by those immersed in digital life.