It's Time to Eat the Rich to Feed the Artists
Why You Should Stop Buying Art From Department Stores.
You know that thing that happens when you walk into TK-Maxx and see a "Live Laugh Love" canvas for £19.99? That nagging neural-nudge, "for fuck’s sake"? That’s your soul throwing up on itself.
I feel it too. It's like my eyes glaze over and my heart sinks a little. We've turned art into inventory. We've made the walls of our homes as bland and algorithmic as our fecking social feeds.
We've normalised buying our art the same way we buy our toilet paper: cheap, convenient, and completely devoid of human connection. And honestly? It’s pissing me off (and I am the one who always buys the cheapest bog roll).
The Billion-Dollar ‘Scam’ You're Funding
Let me ruin your day for a second: the mass-market wall art industry in the U.S. alone is worth around $19 billion. Billion. With a Big Bastarding B.
That cash isn’t floating down to the people who sketch and paint and bleed onto their canvases. It’s padding the yachts of tech elites who wouldn’t know their gesso from arse-o.
Target? $106 billion in 2023
Walmart’s 2023 rev? $611 billion
TJX (TK-Maxx’s parent company) posted $17.24 billion in gross profit for 2025
Aisle after aisle of art-shaped bollocks.
Meanwhile, the artist whose style they ripped off is eating pot noodles again. Third night this week. mmm fake beef and too much too-salty soy sauce.
Let me spell it out: you’re funding a system that thrives on creative theft and leaves the actual creators out in the cold.
The Real Cost of "Affordable Art"
I get it. You need something for your walls. That £500 original piece feels like a mortgage payment when there’s a twenty-quid knockoff whispering, "that’ll do."
But here’s the thing: that cheap art? It’s not cheap. Not really.
It costs your community its soul.
Every time we choose mass-produced over local, we say yes to cultural copy-paste. But maybe the biggest loss? Your own authenticity.
When you hang mass-produced wall "art," you’re surrounding yourself with compromise. Every piece says, "I settled." Every brushstroke, if you can call it that, says, "I couldn’t be arsed to buy from local artists."
The Artists Fighting Back
But here’s the good news: artists ARE fighting back.
They’re not just making work, they’re building infrastructure.
Collectives are forming. Pop-ups are becoming permanent. Creators are offering sliding-scale prints, limited-run editions, and rent-to-own schemes. You’ll find £40 prints and £300 originals. Pay monthly with no interest with Own Art. Real art.
Tuesday Bassen sells enamel pins, patches, and prints direct-to-fans online globally. magpiemerch.com
Vanessa Bowman sells Dorset landscape giclées, originals via her website. vanessabowman.co.uk
Glasgow Zine Fest markets risograph zines, prints during the annual fair. glasgowzinelibrary.com
Print Club London screen-prints affordable editions, hosts open-access workshop studio. printclublondon.com
2manysiblings Nairobi thrift socials sell limited upcycled fashion, supporting artists. nataal.com
Ichyulu concept store stocks African designer art, ships worldwide online. ichyulu.com
La Panadería paved the way for Mexico City’s independent art ecosystem. artsy.net
MAMS Gallery sells prints, hosts workshops, and nurtures emerging artists. mamsgallery.co.uk
Real stories. Real people. There are many more where that came from.
And they’re waiting for you to show up.
These stories are inspiring me a lot. Being an artist means we can be an artist in promoting our work (and selling it) ot the world! s
Your Walls, Your Values
Look around your space. Seriously, pause and look.
What do your walls say about you? Are they whispering mass-produced bs, or are they shouting your story, your personality, your culture, your outlook on life?
Art isn’t just decor. It’s biography. It’s philosophy. It’s a fingerprint.
That painting by a local artist? It’s got a story, personality, soul. And when someone asks where it’s from, you don’t have to say, “Oh, just B & M Bargains.”
You say, “Oh, this artwork is by
. He paints in his studio with watercolours and hits the streets with spray cans and rollers. His stuff’s full of memes, safety posters, and dark humour. You kind of laugh, then think about the message behind it all.”That’s the kind of energy I want to live with.
Raw art energy.
The Revolution Starts in Your Living Room
Buying from independent artists isn’t charity. It’s resistance. It’s refusing to accept that meaning should be mass-produced. It’s choosing intimacy over inventory.
And the irony? You get more value. Real art gains emotional weight. It becomes a conversation, a memory, a piece of your life.
Meanwhile, that "abstract" print from Walmart? In five years, it'll be in landfill. You don’t have to change your whole life overnight. Just start with one swap.
Trade one piece of box-store filler for something that breathes.
Follow a local artist online. Share their work. Go to a studio tour and talk to the people making the thing. Tell your friends.
Every piece you buy from a real artist is a vote.
✅ A vote for creativity.
✅ A vote for community.
✅ A vote for soul.
✅ A vote for art.
Real art is for the awake, the alive, the ones who care enough to notice.
You can feel the difference.
So the question is, what’s your wall going to say tomorrow?
If even one person sells a piece of their own art or buys something from another artist after reading this post, I’ll be genuinely thrilled.
Ready to be part of the solution? We're building a movement of people who refuse to settle for mass-produced shart. Please help us understand what's holding you back from supporting local artists by taking our quick poll below. Your answers will help us create better pathways for art lovers to connect with real creators in their communities.
Fill in this poll and let's start the conversation that changes everything.
P.S. I have vented about this before, and I shall again; it’s important to educate and hopefully inspire people to buy independent art!
My "Other" answer is that I DO buy independent art and never the prefab industrial stuff. I'm a minimalist so I don't own much but everything was created by someone, usually someone I know. There's no answer for this in the poll!
Nice piece. Thanks for the mention too. I suppose this is true of other things outside just art as well. People need to fight back and buy off each other.