The double pressure of ageing as an artist

I’ll soon be 38. And while this doesn’t bother me — okay, I’m lying: I dislike the wrinkles slowly settling on my forehead — reaching this age has made me think about what ageing actually means when you’re an artist.

From the outside, it probably doesn’t seem like a major issue. Ageing is universal, after all. But for artists, age is never entirely neutral. It shapes the way we see ourselves, the way we create and present our work, and the expectations that come with it. Growing older inevitably leaves its mark on artistic practice. This influence can be positive — I’ll come back to that later — but it also creates, in my view, a kind of double pressure that becomes increasingly hard to ignore.

1998: beginner / 2025: still learning

The pressure from the art world

Until recently, I hadn’t really thought about it. But over the past few months, I’ve started noticing more and more open calls, residencies, grants, and exhibitions specifically reserved for artists under 30 or 35. These are the moments when you read a call thinking, “My work fits perfectly with what they’re looking for,” only to get to the eligibility criteria and realize, “Never mind — I’m too old.”

I do understand the reasoning behind these age limits. These opportunities are often designed as springboards, meant to support artists at the beginning of their careers. They offer visibility, validation, and sometimes a first sense of legitimacy within the art world. They bring a certain confidence: you are young, yet your work is already considered convincing. When I was still eligible for these calls — even though I don’t recall ever being selected — I remember feeling reassured by the simple fact that I could apply. There was a kind of privilege in that. A sense that time was still on my side.

Now that this door has closed, a certain discomfort sets in. Being excluded forces me to look back at my trajectory and wonder why I was never selected — in other words, whether my work was simply not good enough. It creates the uncomfortable feeling that I failed to fully make use of the years when being “emerging” still excused uncertainty, experimentation, or slow development.

The pressure you put on yourself

I can clearly see that the work I’ve been creating over the past few years is more considered than what I produced in my twenties. Back then, I often made images without really thinking about the message I wanted to convey or the questions I wanted to raise. I would take photographs and only afterwards try to understand where they were leading me — how they might connect to my visual universe and to my statement. Today, my process is the opposite. I usually start with a clear intention: I know what kind of artwork I want to make, and I also know, from the very beginning, the subject I want to explore. In that sense, ageing as an artist undeniably brings something positive. It brings clarity, coherence, and a stronger sense of direction.

But this evolution also comes with its own form of pressure. You slowly realize that time is no longer stretching endlessly in front of you, and that realization can quietly turn into unease. You begin to wonder whether your most important work has already been done — or whether it is still to come. I tend to believe that each new work should be stronger than the previous one. That means I haven’t yet done my best work, even though I’m quite proud of what I’ve already accomplished. This thought is both reassuring and exhausting. It pushes me to keep going, to push my limits further, but at the same time, it feeds the fear of watching time pass without ever fully reaching what I feel I’m capable of. Still, I try to focus on the quality of the work itself, rather than on questions of timing or urgency.

As you grow older, you’re expected to have found your voice, your themes, your place. At the same time, you know you have less space to hesitate, to fail, or to start over. Experimentation becomes riskier, doubt less acceptable. You’re no longer a recently graduated student, nor an artist with only a few years of experience. This internalized pressure can push you toward safer choices, toward coherence at all costs, toward the fear of being seen as “late” or “behind.”

But ageing isn’t entirely negative

From what I’ve written so far, it might seem as though I view ageing as an artist mostly in negative terms. But that isn’t the case. Through the projects I’ve developed, the selections I’ve been granted, and simply through the passing of time, I’ve gained confidence and intuition. It hasn’t been easy — I’ve made mistakes along the way — but even so, I can acknowledge what I’ve accomplished. I also believe that, for me, the future can still be better than the past. There is also a certain kind of intelligence that comes with age. I no longer feel the need to chase every opportunity. I’ve learned how to identify the ones that truly make sense for my work, and I’ve accepted that artistic paths are rarely linear. Perhaps the real challenge of ageing as an artist isn’t learning how to fight time, but learning how to accept and redefine it — not as a countdown or a measure of delay, but as a material that shapes and nourishes the work itself.