Painting for the algorithm or painting for yourself: the trap of trends

01How trends form and why they seduce

Visual trends in contemporary art do not emerge from nowhere. They are the product of a convergence between social media algorithms, collector choices, fair programming and decisions by influential galleries. When an artist like Amoako Boafo experiences meteoric success with portraits of Black figures on monochrome backgrounds, dozens of emerging artists begin producing visually similar works, hoping to capture some of the attention.

The mechanism is understandable. You are an emerging artist, you need to sell to live, and you see that certain types of works find buyers more easily than others. The Instagram algorithm rewards immediately legible, high-contrast images that capture attention in a fraction of a second. The works that perform best on social media are not necessarily the most artistically interesting; they are those that produce the strongest visual impact in thumbnail format.

Fairs amplify the phenomenon. Dealers select for their booths the works most likely to sell in four days. This commercial filter favours accessible, attractive works that match current taste. An artist who visits a fair sees everywhere the confirmation that the current trend is the path to follow.

02The long-term cost of following trends

The problem with trends is that they pass. The artist who built visibility on a trending style finds themselves in difficulty when the wind changes. Collectors move on, galleries seek the next novelty, and the artist has developed nothing personal to fall back on.

Gerhard Richter has traversed more than six decades of career while regularly changing style, from photo-realistic painting to squeegee abstractions, from romantic landscapes to grey monochromes. But each change came from an internal necessity, not an external trend. Richter never painted to please the market. He painted to answer his own questions about what painting could be. It is precisely this authenticity that allowed him to cross through fashions without ever becoming obsolete.

Conversely, many artists who rode the street art wave in the 2010s, producing works calibrated for the market without developing a personal language, saw their prices collapse when enthusiasm shifted. Those who survived are those who, like JR or Invader, had a personal vision strong enough for their work to transcend the category.

03Distinguishing influence from imitation

Every artist works from influences. Seeing another artist's work and feeling something shift in your own practice is normal and healthy. Influence is a dialogue with art history and with your contemporaries. Imitation is something else: reproducing surface effects without understanding the deep motivations that led the original artist to those choices.

Nicolas Party paints still lifes and landscapes that dialogue with the history of painting, from the Quattrocento to Magritte. But nobody would confuse a Nicolas Party with a pastiche, because his use of pastel, his saturated colours, his treatment of form are the result of deep personal research. The influence is digested, transformed, made his own.

When you catch yourself reproducing the aesthetic of an artist who is performing well on social media, ask yourself: am I exploring something that deeply fascinates me, or am I trying to reproduce a commercial result? The honest answer to that question is the best guide.

04What serious collectors actually look for

Collectors who buy for decoration follow trends. Collectors who build a collection look for something else: a singular voice, consistency in development, a trajectory that promises to be interesting over time. These are the collectors you want to attract, because they come back, they recommend, they sustain a career.

The dealer Emmanuel Perrotin has often explained that what interests him in an artist is the capacity to renew while remaining faithful to a vision. An artist who always produces the same thing eventually bores. An artist who changes style every six months to match trends does not inspire confidence. The balance lies in organic evolution, fed by personal research rather than market signals.

Jade Fadojutimi is a good example. Her abstract work, dense and emotionally charged, corresponds to no identifiable trend. It is precisely this singularity that attracted the attention of the Tate, the Museum of Modern Art and the most demanding collectors. Her work does not need the algorithm's validation to exist.

05Using social media without being used by it

Social media is not the enemy. It is a tool, and like any tool, its impact depends on how you use it. The problem is not being on Instagram; it is letting Instagram dictate what you create.

Post your work as it is. Show your process, not just the most photogenic results. Share your doubts, your research, your dead ends. The followers who stay after that kind of content are those genuinely interested in your work, not in the flattering image you might project.

Flora Yukhnovich uses social media to show details of her paintings, studio views, fragments of research. She does not calibrate her work for Instagram's square format. She shows what she does and lets the audience come to her. This approach is slower in terms of audience growth, but it attracts a qualified public that converts into buyers.

06Building your own visual grammar

The best protection against the trap of trends is having a visual language sufficiently developed that it does not need external validation. This language is not built in a day. It is built through the accumulation of decisions made in the studio: this format rather than another, this palette rather than another, this subject rather than another, this technique rather than another.

Every decision that comes from you, from your experience, your obsessions, your personal references, strengthens your visual grammar. Every decision that comes from an external trend dilutes it. After a few years of conscious practice, you arrive at a place where your work is recognisable, where it needs no caption to be identified as yours.

Tomas Saraceno builds installations that belong to no trend. His spider webs, his aerial structures, his experiments with the Aerocene are the product of obsessive research that blends art, science and ecology. Nobody imitates Saraceno, because his work is so rooted in his personal vision that it cannot be reduced to a reproducible formula.

07Accepting that singularity is a slower path

Painting for yourself rather than for the algorithm means accepting that recognition may take longer. The likes may come more slowly. Sales may be more spaced out at first. But what you are building has foundations. And foundations, unlike trends, do not collapse.

On Artedusa, you present your work to buyers seeking original works, not reproductions of trends. The platform values the singularity of each artist and lets you tell the story of your approach, your process, what makes your work unique. It is that space of truth that turns a visitor into a loyal collector.