You’re in the right place if, like me, you are curious about art, you want to explore what it all means and you’re interested in what art does in our world.

My writing 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 ideas which come from looking at art and thinking about its meanings.

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 Dr Victoria Powell, the voice behind The Gallery Companion. 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.

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 frankly 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 I want to do away with it.

I write about art that interests me. That’s not necessarily what I like. I don’t like everything, no one does, but I am interested in why I don’t like some art – and that’s rarely to do with how it looks.

I'll be posting twice weekly on Medium. If you want to hear voiceovers of my posts read by me instead of an automated voice subscribe to my Substack.