The Artist
Fiction by Phil Holt
© 2025 Phil Holt
The artist sat in the public square working away on his canvas. His stomach growled as he focused on making each brush stroke perfect, just so. He could feel that he was on to something. His heart pounded with excitement. This would be his signature work. He felt the creativity flow in a way it never had before.
Then, in a moment of distraction, he accidentally spilled a streak of black paint across his emerging masterpiece.
He sat stunned staring at the ugly offensive streak across his beautiful creation. All was lost. His world was ruined. He felt his dream slipping away. Why did he even try? Who the hell did he think he was? Why didn’t he become an accountant like his brother?
As he sat there, he felt himself sinking slowly into a depression, as if he were sinking deep into dark, dangerous waters. He sank deeper and deeper into the blackness.
Then… A wealthy man came walking by the artist. He was a well-dressed man, a man of distinction, a man of money. As he passed by, he saw the artist and his painting. He saw the bold technique the artist had used. It was stunning. This was innovation!
This painting was clearly the leading edge of the Avant guard, such beauty undercut and yet emphasized by such brutal, garish ugliness. This painting was the next big thing. It spoke to this moment right now. The rich man looked around to see if anyone else had noticed this hidden gem. They hadn’t! He quickly paid the stunned starving artist a hefty sum for the painting and walked away, clutching his new prized possession.
The artist was shocked. This was more money than he’d ever seen in his life.
The artist stopped.
I have other paintings at home, he thought.
He raced back to his artist loft and tore through the works in his studio, trashing his life’s work. He kicked precious oil paintings he had worked on for years. He broke frames of some of them, leaving the canvas to hang from the sides. He smashed others with handle of his toilet bowl plunger. He was in a frenzy, a cyclone for nearly an hour until he lay on his cement floor, panting, gasping for air.
Soon, word spread through art community of this new artist. Soon, everyone had to own one of his paintings. Soon the money flowed like wine.
Months later, the artist attended the opening of a solo show of his work in a chic downtown art gallery. Everyone who was anyone was there, admiring the collection of destroyed paintings hanging on the bright walls. They stood and stared at his work. They mobbed the artist, all seeking a moment of his time.
“Do you have time for a selfie? I just have to post this!”
“Such wonderful work, speaking to the today’s troubled zeitgeist.”
“You simply must show at the Guggenheim.”
He had arrived.
This was his time.
His brother was now his accountant.
At the end of the night, he left the adoring throngs in the gallery. He got into his Lamborghini. He drove away into the night, through the city and up the on ramp onto the freeway. He heard his phone ring.
Then, in a moment of distraction, he pulled into the middle lane without looking. He never had a chance to look into his rearview mirror to see the Semi truck barreling down on him from behind.
He never had a chance.
The art community declared it to be the most daring and provocative work of his tragically short career. The mangled Lamborghini was shone posthumously at the Guggenheim.