An ongoing, long-term, conceptual art project exploring creative consciousness through the collective voices of artists worldwide
2022–Present
Instagram: @artistsoncouches
www.artistsoncouches.com
The Artwork

Artists on Couches (AOC) is a conceptual art project that investigates creative energy and consciousness through the voices of visual artists worldwide. Since 2022, I’ve been inviting artists to explore and share their experiences with the deep mysteries behind their work: intuition, inspiration, flow, the creative process, the source of ideas, and the feeling of creation itself. This is an artwork built from conversation and collective energy rather than physical materials. There is no object. The exchange itself is the art.

The project lives as a digital archive at Instagram.com/artistsoncouches, where I post daily exchanges with artists. What emerges are striking patterns. Artists develop unique processes and expressions, but describe remarkably similar experiences: flow, surrender, channeling. These commonalities reveal something fundamental about creative consciousness that transcends individual practice.

Background

This artwork emerged from a meditation vision in 2020. While recovering from a head injury, I meditated daily and kept receiving the same image: sitting on a couch with other artists, discussing the mysteries of the creative process. That vision became Artists on Couches.

 

Investigation & Intention

Artists on Couches asks: Where do ideas come from? What is intuition? How does creative energy move through us?

By collecting hundreds of artist responses, the project reveals how creative consciousness operates. Individual artists may use different language, but they describe remarkably similar experiences of flow, surrender, and connection to something larger than themselves.

The archive documents both the diversity of individual creative practice and the universal experiences that unite artists across geography, medium, and background. The intention is that this project will eventually exist as an exhibition and publication, but right now it’s a living record of artists reflecting on the invisible parts of their practice.

 

In Context

Hilma af Klint (1862-1944)

Hilma af Klint participated in séances with four other women artists called “The Five” from 1896 to 1908, sitting together to receive spiritual instructions about creativity and consciousness. She described herself as a medium through which images came. AOC emerged from a similar vision during meditation.

Rirkrit Tiravanija (1961-present)

In 1990, Tiravanija cooked pad thai in a gallery and served it to visitors. There was nothing to buy or hang because the exchange itself was the art. AOC works identically: there is no object, the conversation between me and artists worldwide is the artwork.

Sophie Calle (1953-present)

Sophie Calle creates projects collecting intimate stories from strangers through structured prompts, building archives from individual voices that reveal invisible emotional territories. AOC does the same: I ask artists questions about their invisible creative experiences, and what emerges reveals how creative consciousness operates.

Purpose

Artists on Couches makes the invisible visible and defines the undefinable through collective voice. It proves that creative consciousness is both deeply personal and universally shared.

Recognition

Artists on Couches was included in Orlando Weekly’s “2023 Best Of” issue.