Most of us didn’t learn art in a vacuum — we learned it inside systems that told us what “good art” looks like, who gets to make it, and why it matters.
And those systems weren’t neutral. They were engineered.
So when we talk about “bad art,” we’re not talking about lack of talent.
We’re talking about refusing a hierarchy that was never designed for most of us to belong in.
Let’s peel this apart.
The Manufactured Standards of ‘Good Art’
We grow up thinking art has objective rules: realism, perspective, proportion, technique.
But those “rules” didn’t descend from the heavens.
They came from European fine art traditions that defined beauty as something narrow, elite, and deeply tied to power.
Realism became a status symbol.
In the past, particularly in segregated school settings, the attitude toward art was that it had a primary value only when it documented the world as is.— bell hooks, Art on my Mind
Perspective became a measure of intelligence.
Skill became a way to separate “proper artists” from everyone else.
And art institutions, schools, museums, galleries, enforced those standards as if they were universal truths instead of cultural preferences.
Meanwhile, entire worlds of creativity were dismissed as naïve, primitive, unserious, or “outsider.”
Folk art. Indigenous visual languages. Street Art. Queer DIY aesthetics. Punk zines. Hand-drawn comics. Spiritual art. Ritual art. Women’s work.
All of it (and more) has been pushed outside the frame.
So when we talk about “bad art,” we’re often talking about anything that didn’t fit the colonial blueprint of beauty.
How Capitalism Shaped the “Good Artist” Myth
Under capitalism, the artist becomes a product.
Your worth is measured in output and by your perceived “success”.
Your success is measured in sales. And Instagram likes.
Your creativity becomes a brand.
Suddenly, “good art” isn’t just about technique — it’s about market viability.
Make more.
Make faster.
Make polished.
Make consistent.
Make what sells…
The artist becomes a worker on an assembly line, and the imagination becomes something to monetize.
This is where the shame of “bad art” really sinks its teeth in, because if your art isn’t sellable, the system frames it as useless. Wasteful. Indulgent.
But that shame isn’t natural.
It’s manufactured.
White Supremacy and the Erasure of Other Ways of Making
Colonial powers didn’t just take land and resources, they took aesthetic authority, too. They decided whose beauty was “civilized” and whose was “primitive.”
Western art didn’t just set standards— it erased everything that didn’t mirror it.
“Refinement,” “taste,” and “objectivity” became coded language for whiteness, maleness, and class privilege.
The “neutral” critic was never neutral.
The “standard” was never universal.
The “good” was never just about aesthetics.
This is why so many people feel alienated from art before they even begin:
they’re being judged against a system that wasn’t built for them.
To make “bad art” is to step out of that machine and say:
I get to define my own way of seeing.
Bad art interrupts the hierarchy by refusing to compete.
What “Bad Art” Means in The Bad Art Teacher Ethos
When I talk about “bad art,” I’m talking about liberation.
Bad art is:
- unruly
- intuitive
- queer
- folk
- outsider
- scrappy
- emotional
- experimental
- wildly unbothered by being “refined”
It’s art that doesn’t perform for authority, or anyone else.
It’s art that values expression over expertise.
Art that trusts the process more than the final product.
Bad art is a way of reclaiming creativity from the systems that tried to domesticate it.
How to Practice Bad Art as Resistance
Here are some simple get-started ways to intentionally break the rules. More dedicated exercises will be found on the blog soon:
- Draw with your non-dominant hand
- Make something “ugly” on purpose and sit with the discomfort
- Use materials that feel too cheap, too childish, too unprofessional
This isn’t about rebellion for rebellion’s sake.
It’s about returning to the part of you that knew how to make art long before anyone told you what “good” meant.
The Bad Art Teacher isn’t here to make you better. This non-curriculum is here to make you free.
And if you’re wondering why practice bad art, I start to unpack that here: Why Making “Bad Art” Might Save Your Creative Life
But also remember, letting your art be messy, ugly, strange, or untrained is a kind of return: a re-opening to pre-colonial intuitions that weren’t shaped by European art academies.