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

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

This Artwork Changed My Life

Cecilia Vicuña’s Arte Precario Reawakened My Enduring Love of the Sea

This Artwork Changed My Life

Agnes Denes’ Wheatfield Helped Me to Reconcile Art and Environmentalism

This Artwork Changed My Life

Franco Vaccari’s Photomatic D’Italia Taught Me That Infatuation Is All About Image

This Artwork Changed My Life

Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party Taught Me to Take Cooking and Eating Seriously

This Artwork Changed My Life

Richard Prince Showed Me the Impossible Contradictions of Female Sexuality

This Artwork Changed My Life

Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore Evokes the Magic of My English Hometown

This Artwork Changed My Life

Tomás Saraceno Forced Me to Confront My Anxieties About the Modern World

This Artwork Changed My Life

K-Hole’s Trend Reports Taught Me to Stop Worrying About the Art World

This Artwork Changed My Life

Susan Hiller’s Dream Mapping Awoke Me From the Solitary Terror of My Nightmares

This Artwork Changed My Life

Jo Spence’s “Brave” Self-Portraits Taught Me the Brutal Taboos of Womanhood

This Artwork Changed My Life

Bárbaro Rivas Showed Me the Value of My Own Complicated Heritage

This Artwork Changed My Life

Ghost World Taught Me How to Embrace My Teenage Loneliness

This Artwork Changed My Life

Van Gogh’s Two Crabs Raised My Spirits When Nothing Else Could

This Artwork Changed My Life

Finding Fanon Helped Me to Embrace My Love of Sci-Fi and Pop Culture

This Artwork Changed My Life

Piero della Francesca’s Pregnant Madonna Changed the Way I See Religion

This Artwork Changed My Life

Adrian Piper’s Catalysis Taught Me How To Resist Everyday Racism

This Artwork Changed My Life

Barbara Hepworth’s Winged Figure Taught Me the True Meaning of Home

This Artwork Changed My Life

The Guerrilla Girls Taught Me That the Art World Is a Joke

This Artwork Changed My Life

American Gothic Taught Me to Take Nothing at Face Value

This Artwork Changed My Life

The Scream by Edvard Munch Saved Me in My Darkest Depression

This Artwork Changed My Life

Why Rape of the Sabines Made Me a Feminist