To mark the end of the year, I asked past guests of The Creative Kind to share one artwork that stayed with them in 2025. Something that made them pause, something that lingered. What came back were personal reflections on paintings, sculptures, installations, exhibitions, and moments of seeing art that surprised, unsettled, comforted, or quietly shifted something. Some guests spoke about a single work they couldn’t stop thinking about. Others reflected on whole exhibitions, artists they keep returning to, or practices that have reshaped how they work in their own studios.

Across the episode, guests talk about scale and intimacy, about seeing work in person versus online, and about how materials, process, and repetition can carry meaning. Several guests speak about light and shadow, hope and heaviness, and the way an artwork can articulate something you didn’t yet have words for. There are also stories about risk, artists trying something unfamiliar, pushing their own boundaries, or committing to daily practice. A number of guests reflect on how these encounters with art have filtered back into their own practices, changing how they paint, build, repeat, simplify, or let go. Being moved by art doesn’t follow a single pattern, and sometimes the works that stay with us do so because they meet us differently each time we return to them.

This episode lands in a heavy moment following the events in Bondi. My sincerest sympathies to the victims, their families, and community.

• All of the artists mentioned in this episode, along with recommendations from our guests, are linked in the Substack here.

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