Visual Artists Reveal the Songs That Shape Their Studio Lives and Creative Worlds

27 October 2025

An extraordinary sound system … Peter Doig’s exhibition House of Music at Serpentine Gallery, London. Photograph: Guy Bell/Shutterstock

In their studios around the world, artists are hitting play and allowing music to become an unseen collaborator, notes, rhythms and melodies weaving themselves into their creative process. According to interviews conducted by The Guardian, creatives like Chris Ofili, Lindsey Mendick, Ragnar Kjartansson and others shared how specific albums and genres act as catalysts for ideation, mood and flow.

Chris Ofili describes the contrast between his past London studio where music masked urban noise and his current hillside studio in Trinidad, where his surroundings are rich in birdsong, insect wings and the rustle of nature. In this quieter backdrop he now chooses music with care, favouring sonic arrangements and vocals that “stimulate thoughts and emotions and can be colourful too.” He listens to SAULT in particular, noting how their intertwining of spirituality, Black experience and mystery resonates with his painting practice.

For Ragnar Kjartansson, his studio by the harbour in Reykjavík is almost a living room for music and art; he paints, listens to friends playing Bach, and drives around with his teenage daughter while absorbing songs. He recalls adolescence in Iceland when listening to The Cure on a Walkman set a tone of melancholic swank beneath the freezing air. For him, the album Dichterliebe by Robert Schumann unlocked a way of making art, “deconstructing romanticism at the height of romanticism.”

Lindsey Mendick remembers being eight, forming a shrine to the Spice Girls in her bedroom and discovering her voice as someone who didn’t fit the box crafted for women. Her best friend became singer-songwriter Self Esteem, whose songs pushed her to be braver. Mendick uses anthems like those on Lemonade by Beyoncé to reinforce courage in her installations sometimes even singing along while she works.

The connections between art and music stretch beyond inspiration to the very architecture of creative time. For many, sound acts as a structural element. For instance, artist Haroon Mirza talks about being mesmerised by a house-party mixtape in his teens the loops of electronic sound becoming a blueprint for his sculptural installations. The record tape wasn’t background; it was foundational.

These artists view music not just as a mood-setter but as a set of tools: tracks become emotional weather, playlists mirror project phases and albums box in the parameters of focus. In their words, the right song flicks a switch not just in mind but in material process. They do not merely listen; they allow certain records to live within their revisions, explorations and even failures.

What emerges is a vivid portrait of the studio as more than a place of visuals. It becomes a sound-space, a site where basslines and brushes co-exist. For Ofili, the live sound of a steel-pan ensemble in Trinidad became as influential as any painting. Kjartansson takes comfort in the combination of high-brow and pop Bach and teen-pop driving the same engine. Mendick uses emotive pop to propel raw creative energy. Mirza rewires sound into sculptures and installations. Though their media differ, the pattern is consistent: music underpins intention and fuels output.

Their revelations also speak to something broader about creative culture. In an age when visual art is often de-cliched as silent and contemplative, these testimonies underscore how art-makers are deeply auditory, rhythmic and responsive. The stereotype of the quiet painter at an easel alone with solitude fades when you realise they may actually have playlists in loop, speakers on blast and music shaping their response-time to the canvas or space.

In practical terms, the real insight lies in how you might apply this to your own process whatever medium you work in. Consider the soundtrack you approach your projects with; note how a certain rhythm might shift your steady state; experiment with what kinds of music support flow versus distraction. For these artists, the right record wasn’t optional it was instrumental.

At the end of the day the message from these creators is clear: pay attention to the soundtrack of your work. Be deliberate with what fills your ears. Because when the playlist changes, often the work changes too.