What’s The Gallery Companion?
The Gallery Companion is a free weekly newsletter choc-full of art-related things that I’m thinking about, links to inspiring videos, news about interesting international exhibitions, stories about art, and features on the artists who subscribe to The Gallery Companion.
You’re in the right place if you are curious about art, if you want to explore what it all means and if you’re interested in what art does in our world.
This isn’t where you’ll find chat about the minutiae of art history, or the academic blah blah blah about brush strokes or provenance. But it is where you’ll find thought-provoking and inspiring ideas.
I’m Dr Victoria Powell, the voice behind The Gallery Companion, and I’m glad you’ve found your way here. I write about art, history and culture. I’ve been a lecturer in modern and contemporary art for over 15 years. And I’m curious about almost everything.
I’m an historian so I look at artworks as cultural sources. I’m always thinking about how ideas change over time, and how they get interpreted in different ways. Looking at art and artists is (I think) a fascinating way of doing that.
Art is a representation of thoughts, feelings, ideas and experiences. For me art is about people, stories, and the things we need to express. I’m interested in how ideas that are circulating in culture and society are filtered through the artist and emerge in visual form.
I’m also interested in the role of art in the world, what its function is, what it does for us, both as makers and viewers.
That’s the stuff I write about. And in sentences that actually make sense. There's no confusing art speak here. None of the hifalutin, hoity-toity, dry and boring language which you often find in the Art World, on the walls of art galleries, and in quite a lot of books about art.
That language makes me start yawning immediately, and my eyes glaze over. It switches people right off, and it’s not my thing.
Who’s it for?
The Gallery Companion is for artists, art lovers and the art curious. It’s definitely for you if you feel like you’re not quite sure what to think about art sometimes, or that you have missed ‘the point’ because you don’t understand what you’re looking at.
But it’s also for you if you have already got some knowledge of contemporary and historical art and you want to learn more.
Subscribe to the weekly email
The Gallery Companion goes out weekly on a Friday. There will be lots in it to inspire you, so it’s a sort of read-it-over-several-goes type of email. I would love to know what you think, so please comment, like or reply.
And please share it with people you think would love this newsletter! This is a growing community (currently over 4,000 readers), and I would be grateful if you would help spread the word.
Join The Gallery Companion’s chat
There’s also a chat area on the Substack app for subscribers, which you can also access on the web. If you have an exhibition or a news story you want to share, a question for the community, an image that’s blown you away that you want to talk about, you can start a chat and share with The Gallery Companion community. Click on the link below and follow the instructions.
