This Artwork Changed My Life

This Artwork Changed My Life is a fortnightly series of personal essays that share the stories of life-changing encounters with art.

This Artwork Changed My Life

How Francesca Woodman Helped Put Me Back in the Picture

This Artwork Changed My Life

How I Was Seduced by the Cinematic Glamour of Guy Bourdin’s Photography

This Artwork Changed My Life

How This Gay Indian Erotica Helped Me Escape the Sexual Shame I Grew Up With

This Artwork Changed My Life

Miroslaw Balka’s How It Is Showed Me the Way Out of My Own Darkness

This Artwork Changed My Life

How the Grave of Alfred Wallis Took Me Back to a Hometown I’d Rejected

This Artwork Changed My Life

How George Breitner’s Snowy Street Scene Helped Me Live with Loneliness

This Artwork Changed My Life

How I Learned Not to Worry About Being Cool and Fell in Love with Renoir Again

This Artwork Changed My Life

Hannah Höch’s Collage Helped Me Cut Up My Own Relationship to Art and Life

This Artwork Changed My Life

How Christian Marclay’s The Clock Reset My Relationship with Time

This Artwork Changed My Life

How Basquiat’s Art Banished the Monsters from Under a Terrified Toddler’s Bed

This Artwork Changed My Life

How Agnes Martin’s Desert Flower Gave Me the Peace and Reconciliation I Needed

This Artwork Changed My Life

How David Wojnarowicz’s Photographs Helped Me Overcome My Grief

This Artwork Changed My Life

Why Ree Morton’s ‘Don’t Worry, I’ll Only Read You The Good Parts’ Made Me Cry

This Artwork Changed My Life

Did Monet’s Waterloo Bridge Shape My Career as an Art Critic?

This Artwork Changed My Life

How Günter Brus’ Self Painting Showed Me Life’s Psychotic Duality

This Artwork Changed My Life

How Narkevičius’ The Role of a Lifetime Showed Me a New World of Dissent

This Artwork Changed My Life

Rauschenberg’s Mud Muse Taught Me to Find Cohesion Even Amidst Chaos

This Artwork Changed My Life

The Lady of Shalott Taught Me That Female Power Exists Beyond Fairytales

This Artwork Changed My Life

Simone Leigh Proved to Me That Black Women Can Claim Space in a Hostile World

This Artwork Changed My Life

Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit Showed Me the Radical Power of Self-Publishing

This Artwork Changed My Life

Richard Billingham Helped Me to Accept the True Ugliness of Alcoholism

This Artwork Changed My Life

Bill Henson’s Photograph of a Floating Girl Captured My Own Teenage Longing

This Artwork Changed My Life

Paul Nash Taught Me the Unknowable Multiplicity of My Desires

This Artwork Changed My Life

Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin Helped Me to Reconnect After an Abortion