The work of fine art is risky at the outset. It’s mostly risk, because you expose your mind to open possibilities. Free-range thinking. The potential for failure is high, which makes the work authentically work, and culturally valuable.

When you find an artist who seems locked into a style, ask yourself, “How can this style fail to produce a good painting?” If the style is infallible, there’s no risk, and no authentic work is being done. The style is all that exists. Each painting made this way is merely another iteration of something the artist discovered some time before, back when they were doing the work of art-making.