New Year, New Beginnings

How artists can teach us about starting afresh

“You can’t sit around and wait for somebody to say who you are. You need to write it and paint it and do it.” –– Faith Ringgold

Dear Readers!

January is a time for fresh starts, new resolutions, and for thinking about the unknown road ahead of us. As the days get longer and lighter in the first weeks of 2025, I'm turning to the artworks that help me to think about new beginnings and new possibilities.

When we enter a new year, as I wrote in The Guardian, we should remember that it’s never too late to pick up something new, or return to something you once did.

So, here are 6 artworks and artists that encapsulate the spirit of beginnings.

Enjoy. Love, Katy Xoxo

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1. Dorothea Tanning: "Birthday" (1942)

A painting made to mark her 'birth' as an artist, “Birthday” is of a bare-chested Tanning, wearing a silky, mauve bomber-like jacket and dark skirt (that looks to be coated in a sheath made from fantastical twig-like figures).

She clutches onto a doorknob, and behind her is a sea of slightly open doors. It reminds me of the beginning of the year, because of the many possibilities that await us. The many doors that are yet to be opened, the work yet to be done, the many people who haven't met, conversed, laughed, fallen in love, and more...

I often think of this Rainer Maria Rilke quote, when I look at this painting: "And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done..."

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2. Kapwani Kiwanga: on the power of small

An artwork that I saw in 2024, which had a significant impact on me, was Kiwanga’s Canadian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. It featured over 7 million tiny Murano beads in different tones and shades, hung together to create serene partitions.

It told a multitude of stories, from trade (as the beads were once used as currency for gold); globalisation; community; to the history of Venice (the island Murano, in Venice, produces this beautiful glass).

But it also got me to think about the potential that one tiny object, like a bead, can hold. Can this be a starting point for a discussion that speaks to globalisation, looks at the history of trade, and tells a story of a place, like Venice, that has been steeped in artisanal culture for the last few hundred years?

This year I’m thinking about the power of something small – but significant – to tell a story that can speak to something larger, and be a gateway to something greater and deeper. “I think the starting point is just being curious,” Kiwani told Wallpaper*.