THE EQUATION OF SUCCESSFUL ART

There’s a persistent idea in the art world that success is something vague and unpredictable. That it’s down to timing, luck, taste, or being in the right place at the right moment. While all of those things can play a part, I’ve never found that explanation particularly satisfying. It removes responsibility from the artist and replaces it with mythology.

Over time, and through experience, I’ve come to believe that successful art is not mysterious at all. It’s complex, yes, but not random. It’s the result of multiple elements working together, often quietly, often invisibly, but consistently.

A while ago, I wrote this equation as a way of articulating how I think about that process...

Successful Art = [ (Storytelling + Execution) × (Emotion ^ Originality) ] ^ Sharing

It’s not meant to be scientific. It’s not a formula you can plug numbers into and expect guaranteed results. It’s simply a framework — a way of understanding why some work resonates, endures, and reaches people, while other work, even technically strong work, doesn’t.

What matters to me isn’t the equation itself, but what it forces you to confront.

It removes the comfort of excuses.

At the centre of it is the idea that success isn’t created by one dominant factor. It’s created by the interaction between several, and if one of them is missing or underdeveloped, the entire structure weakens.

Storytelling and execution sit together because neither works properly without the other. Storytelling gives the work meaning, context, and depth. It doesn’t have to be literal or narrative in an obvious sense, but it has to exist. There has to be an underlying reason for the work to exist beyond aesthetics. Something that anchors it, even if that anchor is subtle or abstract.

Execution, on the other hand, is what allows that meaning to be communicated clearly. Poor execution muddies intention. Weak craft distracts from content. If the work can’t physically support what it’s trying to say, then the story collapses before it reaches the viewer.

I’ve seen powerful ideas fail because they weren’t executed to a level that did them justice. I’ve also seen beautifully made work that feels hollow because there’s nothing beneath the surface. Storytelling without execution feels unfinished. Execution without storytelling feels empty.

They don’t compete with each other. They rely on each other.

But even when those two elements are strong, they don’t operate in isolation. They’re multiplied by emotion — not added to it. Emotion is the force that determines whether someone connects with the work or simply recognises it as competent. You can understand a piece intellectually and still feel nothing. Emotion is what bridges that gap.

What’s important here is that emotion isn’t binary. It isn’t about whether something is emotional or not. It’s about depth, clarity, and resonance. Does the work create a genuine response, or does it merely signal that a response is expected? Does it feel honest, or does it feel engineered?

That distinction is subtle, but people sense it instinctively.

Emotion becomes even more powerful when originality is introduced, which is why, in the equation, emotion is raised to the power of originality rather than simply multiplied by it. Originality amplifies emotional impact. It doesn’t replace it.

Originality, as I see it, isn’t about novelty for its own sake. It isn’t about being different at all costs. It’s about voice. Point of view. The accumulation of influences filtered through personal experience and belief. When work feels genuinely original, it carries a sense of conviction. It feels authored rather than assembled.

Originality without emotion is just style. Emotion without originality risks feeling generic. When the two align, the work gains weight.

But even when all of that is in place — storytelling, execution, emotion, originality — the equation still isn’t complete. That’s where the final element comes in: sharing.

Sharing is often misunderstood, especially by artists. It’s frequently framed as self-promotion, ego, or compromise. I don’t see it that way.

I see sharing as responsibility.

Art that isn’t shared has no impact. No influence. No opportunity to inspire or connect. It exists only as potential. That doesn’t mean everything has to be loud or constantly pushed, but it does mean the artist has to accept that communication is part of the job.

This is where many artists struggle, not because they lack talent, but because they resist this part of the process. They want the work to speak entirely for itself, as if context, explanation, or presence somehow dilute its purity. In reality, silence rarely protects work. More often, it obscures it.

Sharing doesn’t mean over-explaining or removing mystery. It means understanding how to communicate enough for the work to be encountered properly. It means being able to talk about intention without dictating interpretation. It means standing behind your work in public, in conversation, in a room full of people who may or may not understand it yet.

In the equation, sharing raises everything else to a power because its impact compounds over time. A strong piece of work shared once has limited reach. A strong piece of work consistently and thoughtfully shared has the potential to build momentum, recognition, and trust.

Trust is an underrated factor in all of this.

Collectors don’t just respond to individual works. They respond to patterns. Consistency of thinking. Consistency of quality. Consistency of intent. Sharing allows those patterns to become visible.

Without it, even the most carefully made work can disappear.

This framework also explains why success in art is relatively rare. Not because talent is rare, but because alignment is rare. It’s difficult to maintain high standards across every variable at once.

It requires emotional intelligence, technical discipline, patience, self-awareness, and a willingness to be seen.

Most people are strong in one or two areas. Fewer are strong in all of them. Fewer still are willing to take responsibility for the ones they find uncomfortable.

I don’t use this equation as a checklist or a target. I use it as a lens. When something isn’t working, it gives me a way to diagnose why. Is the idea clear but the execution weak? Is the work well made but emotionally flat? Is it strong in the studio but unsupported in the world?

Those questions are far more useful than asking whether something is “good” or “bad”.

This way of thinking has made me more deliberate, not more rigid. It’s helped me understand that success isn’t about chasing trends or copying outcomes. It’s about aligning intention with execution and then having the courage to share the result.

The equation doesn’t remove uncertainty. Art will always involve risk. But it does remove the illusion that success is entirely out of the artist’s hands.

For me, that’s empowering.

It reinforces the idea that being an artist is not about waiting to be discovered or hoping to be chosen. It’s about making work that earns attention, connection, and longevity through care, clarity, and commitment.

When all of those elements come together, success stops feeling accidental. It starts feeling deserved — not in an entitled way, but in the sense that the work has been built to withstand real engagement.

That’s the standard I measure myself against.

Not whether something sells quickly, or trends well, or gets immediate validation, but whether it holds together across all of those dimensions. Whether it can survive time, repetition, conversation, and context.

Because when art succeeds, it isn’t because one thing went right. It’s because many things aligned, and alignment is never accidental.