Art making in a chaotic life

There’s an unassuming sound installation at the back of the first-floor gallery, ‘Why We Make’ in the newly opened V&A East.

As you enter, you’ll walk past the fancy dresses, the enlarged posters, and the sculptures, all the way to the back where you’ll find two gloriously large sofas. In the midst of these are 2 speaker phones to pick up and listen to.

As usual, I’m laden down with bags. I head straight for the sofas. The artists’ names on the sign catch my eye, being familiar from local community art events. I pick up the speaker and listen to a series of WhatsApp voice notes between the two who were talking, quite fittingly, about what they should do for their V&A commission.

With a grimace, I know where she is before Alaa even says it. It’s the non-gentrified* side of East London: grimy, loud, packed streets that I encounter (or rather, try to avoid), every day. The sounds trigger an instinctive rejection. My head, already a crowded, cluttered, chaotic space, is overwhelmed further when thrown into these streets.

*important distinction to make, iykyk

I continue to listen to the two artists as I catch my breath and cool down. They reflect on the collaborative projects they’ve done around the area.

It’s a thought that makes me pause: creating through the noise.

Clicking the speaker back into the holder, I look through the window. The general buzz of London is visible through the tiny holes in the darkened blinds. It’s a little less daunting when seen from this distance.

I recently visited The Serpentine Galleries in Hyde Park. Both are beautiful spaces (and free! I love London!).

If you’re lucky to go in the Summer of 2026 (till 23rd August), you’ll visit David Hockney’s scenes of Normandy in the North Gallery, and Cecily Brown’s exhibition in the South.

Hockney’s are what I’m eager to see first. For years, I have admired his relentless pursuit of art, in all mediums, at all ages of his life.

These paintings look amateurish on first glance. It’s almost MS Paint-esque (see healthy Reddit debates around Hockney’s previous iPad exhibitions).

But the darkened room with the glowing tapestry absorbs me into its immersive narrative. The long, winding, connected string of paintings is a poignant celebration of the hyperlocal, everyday surroundings of Normandy. The paintings are layered with digital texture.

I end up in one corner of the room, the lengthy tapestry gaping on either side of me. To my right, late summer falls to autumn. To my left, winter melting into the first buds of spring. This meditative sequence allows one to gradually pass through time itself.

The layers upon layers of blobby brushmarks, the haphazard lines, the MS Paint-ness of it: they’re all signs of frantic looking, of a deeper urge to capture the near and the now.

Recurring motifs include the same haybales, the same red-roofed house, the same trees bare here or in bloom there. It draws you right into the landscape of it. By painting with his signature style, Hockney creates his Normandy, no matter how trivial the subject matter. I came away from the exhibition thinking: celebrating the everyday is what makes life poetic, what makes the normal more bearable.

My own jaunts in this spirit include collecting photos of abandoned chairs in my neighbourhood. I’ve yet to discover what these will turn into, but I’m interested in where it will go (and why they’re all there in the first place? TBC).

My neighbourhood of London is not the London tourists come to visit. But it’s a place I have a relationship with. Like Suhaiymah and Alaa, having strong feelings about the ‘human chaos’ I find myself in means I have a meaningful subject matter. And like Hockney, I can create my own dialogue that’s engaged, and hyperspecific.

Entering the South Gallery and passing through Cecily Brown’s exhibition, the painting that captivates me the most is in the gift shop. The Agitated Stroke draws me into the frantic lines that cover the green watercolour background.

If I opened my journal and visualised my entries, they would look like this. An initial mess of ink scratches and blots, with drawings hidden on closer inspection. Anxieties visualised.

Learning to make sense of the internal and external chaos, and then create something from it, is something I’ve been thinking about more recently as I consider reviving my content creation through a more reflective, deeper, and curiouser lens.

If anything resonated, let me know in the comments. I’m working on some longer articles to be released, so this was just dipping my toe back in the water! It’s daunting to post any kind of content after such a long break, especially when I don’t think it’s good enough! But it’s equally important to publish before you’re ready and take the plunge (how did I do it before?!).

Take care, and stay creative,

Noor