Things That Inspired Me in 2025
Seeing all of these “year in review” posts people are making got me thinking about how strange of a year 2025 was for me as an artist. It was probably my least “productive” year in a long time in terms of making new art. However, I encountered a lot of things that really inspired me, so hopefully I can use them as fuel to make more work in 2026. Here’s a list of things in no particular order of importance that really got me thinking about the direction my work might take in the near future:
Anselm Kiefer: Für Andrea Emo
I lied in that last sentence, because this is probably the most important one (although I promise that the rest are in no particular order). In this collection of his translated journal entries, Anselm Kiefer talks about how he is displeased with his current artwork compared to his older work. He eventually comes to the conclusion that the reason behind this is that his older work is more “raw”, because he was less experienced. He talks about re-capturing that rawness by introducing new processes to his artistic practice, to try and re-capture that feeling of not knowing what a piece will look like before he even starts working on it. I felt this in my bones. It sort of explains why most of my artistic practice this year was a bunch of weird experiments, as opposed to making anything “finished”.
Moving Mountains: Pruning of the Lower Limbs
After a 12 year hiatus, Moving Mountains put out a new album. Despite the time gap, this album feels like it picks up right where they left off, while still acknowledging the fact that 12 years is a lot of time to grow and change as both a person and an artist. Moving Mountains’ entire discography has been my go-to “studio music” ever since I was in college. Something about their sound just inspires me to be creative, and Pruning of the Lower Limbs continues to fit that vibe perfectly. I also got the chance to see them perform live this year, which was an incredible experience that I’ve thought about almost every day since then.
28 Years Later
Without spoiling anything, this movie has a massive tonal shift in its third act that moved me in a way that came out of nowhere. As a big fan of the other movies in this series, it was completely unexpected. I hope Danny Boyle and Alex Garland can keep tricking movie studios into giving them hundreds of millions of dollars to fund their weird art films.
Arc Raiders
Aside from just being a really incredible game, the art direction is absolutely phenomenal. Repurposing / upcycling materials has always played a role in a lot of my artwork, but the retro-futurist vibes dripping from every corner of Arc Raiders did something to expand my perspective on the types of objects that can be re-purposed for the sake of aesthetics.
Avatar: Fire and Ash
The Avatar movies are like comfort food for me. I think it has something to do with the fact that the first one came out when I was a teenager, and at that time the spectacle and technology present in the film absolutely blew me away. After the series’ 15 year hiatus, I think the last two films have been really fantastic, and give me the same sense of comfort that the first one does. Like Arc Raiders, this film has me thinking about new visuals that I can incorporate into my work. Bioluminescence is cool.
The Art of John Harris: Beyond the Horizon (and volume II)
The “weird experiments” I talked about earlier involved me doing a bunch of digital painting this year. I’ve always been really inspired by the sense of “vastness” that can be captured in sci-fi paintings, and John Harris is the master of that as far as I’m concerned. Studying the paintings in these books really helped me start learning to capture some of the absolutely enormous spaces I have in my mind on a (digital) 2D surface in a way that sculptures just really can’t compete. Maybe I’ll show some of my paintings one day.
Simon Stålenhag: The Labyrinth
Like John Harris, Simon Stålenhag is another master of contemporary sci-fi painting. He takes an extremely narrative approach to his work, and the “The Labyrinth” is a collection of his paintings accompanied by a short story he wrote about the events they depict. The narrative element to his work has me thinking a lot of about incorporating something similar in my own work, and exploring the idea of building entire worlds as opposed to “just” artwork that exists in those worlds.
Death Stranding: Director’s Cut
Directed by Hideo Kojima. I could fill pages gushing about how Hideo Kojima is one of the world’s greatest living artists, but I’ll save that for another time. Although it came out a few years ago, I finally got around to finishing Death Stranding earlier this year. The way that it discusses life, death, loss, and the afterlife is full of just about every overused trope you can think of, but the way that the game’s narrative is organized gave me a lot of comfort. The absolute madman/genius has done it again. Hopefully the sequel will be released on PC this year so I can play it.