DREI FRAGEN with Gio Manveli

Artist Gio Manveli shares his artistic wisdom.

Each Monday I ask a different artist the same three questions.

This week's featured artist is a close friend, fellow office plankton, peer, muse, buddy and fellow outsider, Gio Manveli.

It’s been a real pleasure to see his art practice blossom over the 4 years I’ve known him.

1. What first sparked your interest in creating art?

Honestly, boredom.

As a kid I drew a lot, before adult life happened. School, work, family, pretending to be a proper adult. For years I barely touched a paintbrush.

Then in my thirties I moved abroad, found myself staring at white walls in a new apartment, and somehow ended up painting again. It started as a way to switch my brain off after work. No big moment and desire to shake art world. No spiritual awakening either. Just paint, canvas, and a desperate need to think about something other than spreadsheets and meetings.

The funny part is that what started as a hobby slowly became the thing I cared about most.

2. What are your regrets?

The obvious one: not starting earlier.

But if I’m honest, I probably wasn’t ready earlier.

My bigger regret is spending too much time worrying about what other people would think. Whether a painting was “good enough.” Whether I was a “real artist.” Whether I had my own style yet.

The irony is that nobody was thinking about me nearly as much as I imagined.

Most growth happened when I stopped caring about what people say in comments to my art and started making work that genuinely interested me - even if it confused people, looked weird, or failed completely. My moto is “Go cringe and see what happens”.

I still make plenty of mistakes. I’ve just become more efficient at making them.

3. What wisdom would you offer someone beginning their art career, or exploring art for the first time at any stage in life?

Make more bad art.

Seriously.

Most people spend years trying to avoid making bad work, which is exactly why they never make good work.

Your first paintings will disappoint you. Your tenth probably will too. Maybe your hundredth. That’s normal. The gap between your taste and your ability is actually a good sign—it means you know what great work looks like.

Secondly: stop comparing your beginning to someone else’s middle.

Every artist you admire has a secret archive full of terrible work they hope nobody ever sees.

The difference is they kept going.

And finally - my favorite piece of advice, without which everything above becomes pointless: have fun.

Because there will be days when it feels like the world is against you. The algorithm hates you. Nobody buys. Nothing works. Those days are guaranteed.

The people who survive aren’t always the most talented. They’re the ones who genuinely enjoy the process enough to keep showing up anyway.

When you truly enjoy making art, you become surprisingly hard to stop. You show up with the persistence of an Olympic athlete - not because someone forces you to, but because you actually want to be there.

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Check out my man Gio via his website.

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