We know art can make you feel smart, make you friends and be your best cultural asset. But did you know, it can also make you happy? Studies continue to explore the deep connection between creativity and happiness, finding that art can lower stress levels, help us cope with illness and provide relief from the strain of everyday life. With this in mind, here are three ways we think art is an exercise in feeling good. Join us for some mood boosting art.

Step Outside of Yourself

Between work, home and life we can find ourselves trapped inside our heads. Stressed and fatigued, escaping this state can feel impossible. Enter art. Like a window into another world, art can help you see the world (and yourself) anew.

Take Jeffrey Smart’s surreal renditions of urban life. In works like Cahill Expressway, Smart transforms a drab highway into something otherworldly. After encountering Smart, industrial sites will never sit the same stale way. In this way art is not only an aesthetic experience, it's an invitation to take a break from our brains and see the world with fresh eyes.

Learn Something New

Art is not only an invitation to think differently about ourselves, it's an opportunity to learn about others. Sometimes, it's an avenue into culture and history. The work of Arthur Boyd for example, is like a time capsule of mid twentieth century Australia - wrought at a time when art was rapidly evolving in the midst political unrest and huge social changes.

Other times, art can foster empathy. Embedded in Auguste Blackman’s work for example, is his experience as the son of Charles Blackman. Through his work, we can encounter Auguste’s upbringing with rich and surprising intimacy.

The Magic of Art

Few other mediums have the ability to engage us like art. Looking at a sublime work can prick our rational faculties, emotions and sensory instincts. Sometimes we feel shocked or outraged, other times we are enveloped in pure beauty. This is the magic of art - to take us outside our bodies without making us move.  

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