What your purchased art says about you
Human buying psychology, says we buy who we are and who we want to be.
We buy for our needs. There are four considered most basic, which we are in constant pursuit of (1) happiness/spirituality, (2) health, (3) wealth, and self (4). We want to be happy, find wealth, self-actualize and have optimum health.
Sometimes we buy what we can’t afford…the old fake it until you make it phenomenon.
We buy things just so others can witness us buying them because we can. Chasing the experience of being envied, coveted, and loved for what we have though we say we want to be loved for who we are.
We buy how we want to feel, we buy exactly how we feel, sometimes we don’t even know that is how we feel until someone calls us out on it.
Your purchased artwork is you on the canvas, in the bronze sculpture, in the glass, the resin, the inkblots. It is awareness at its finest, pun certainly intended.
Fine art buying is a window into the soul of the buyer, and if you really sit with it, it can blow your psychology and your personality wide open.
Your art says what you value deep in your inner world
Art easily puts your values on display. If you’ve ever questioned what you care about, or wonder if you have lost your way and are struggling with getting back to your authentic self, rediscover you through your art collection.
Here are some takes on personality based on the types of paintings, sculptures, or imagery you are magnetized by in your art purchases.
“It is not necessary for a work to have lots of things to look at, to compare, to analyze, one by one, and to contemplate. The thing as a whole, and its qualities as a whole is what is interesting.”
Minimalism/Simplicity: Are you drawn to simple works that make use of tons of space, and allow you to focus on the message being conveyed? Your values might be around packing light and living your life with a sense of emotional minimalism. You may hate clutter and thrive in spaciousness both in your inner world and the external.
You might tend to be more generous and valuegiving. The feeling as though life is best lived unburdened by things or emotions very well is the compass that guides you through life. This could mean that you understand love and kindness are to be given away and you, for example, only need to experience anger for the moment it occurs without becoming it or letting it overrun your life.
You’re likely the voice of reason and the peacemaker in your friend group. If you take your minimalism very seriously you may live with a capsule wardrobe from season to season, possessing only 20-30 pieces of clothing and shoes, only purchasing things you absolutely love that also add functionality to your life.
“Color provokes a psychic vibration. Color hides a power still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body.”
― Wassily Kandinsky
Vibrancy/Energy: Who has more energy than a child?
Basquiat once said he intentionally wanted to create work that looked like it was done by a child. These works are the most energetic and vibrant, unbarred by reality. They don’t care about the lines and manage to always bend them until they and the rules are in shambles.
When someone more conservative, a stickler for the rules, comes along with their stuffy opinion to make the correction, they break the rules, even more, creating new styles altogether. Artists like Basquiat find themselves levitating in the fantasy world just above a mediocre reality–with finesse. You may be the energetic and youthful one among those you know, ever seeking to be unique and creative, not quite predictable either.
Basquiat mixed street art, the abstract, and neo-expressionism. It is possible you have a lot of ideas and thoughts and a laundry list of goals or to-do lists that may be near impossible for you to tick off. You could likely be animated, dramatic, value boldness and fearlessness, if energetic works grab your attention and your pocketbook.
Hustle/Persistence: If you enjoy glass art similar to what Zac Knudson is known for you might have a good relationship with money. You may even value money or your ability to make it, that and the hustle, persistence, frugality that is believed necessary towards attaining and maintaining wealth. Perchance, you may value frugality over a hyper-consumption culture or the “security” having money provides.
Humanity: Are you drawn to human figures and portraiture in the art you purchase? You might value connection, self-development and care deeply about how others feel, what makes them tick, and the interconnectedness of one human life to another. You could be a self-described empath. You might even enjoy human psychology and the deeper facets of human behavior or have a general appreciation of the human form.