The Ashmolean, Oxford: Around this time last year, I started looking at a lot of art.

Around this time last year (actually, somewhat earlier, who’s keeping track), I started looking at a lot of art. I scoured the galleries in London, Chelsea and the Meatpacking District in search of the ultimate form and pieces of creativity.

I can’t put my finger on what I was searching for. However, one of the outcomes of working in the creative industry, albeit in a role which is perceived as supporting creatives and everything else that is going on, is that you begin to at least think in the same creative style. Art to me lives incredibly close to design and the ability to express yourself freely, visually and emotionally; does it follow I was looking for some type of self-expression or people who spoke a similar language? The question drags its heels.

And so I found a wealth of creative work manifested through everything from sand castle installations built at the centre of city showrooms near the High Line smack bang in the middle of summer, to Damien Hirst’s Colour Space Paintings at the Gagosian; the Gagosian itself, which is a phenomenal space for art display, designed to blow your mind and indeed your wallet; artists that played with medium on canvas, who threw a wealth of oil, acrylic and other – let’s call it – “stuff” at the canvas and who made it make sense.

Artists who swapped the good old cotton and linen canvas for burlap and hemp and who nonchalantly painted on the back of it rather than the front, just for LOLs; less known artists, emerging artists and our contemporary greats, Asian artists, African artists, American artists, people eloquent enough to take creative thought and turn it into matter and talented enough to turn their craft into a business.

Months after my artistic excursions, sifting through the photos on my phone, I identified the art that most made sense for me – the “I would make that kind of art if I were an artist” kind of art.

Unsurprisingly, it’s pretty much all messy and abstract splatter paintings, executed with over the top medium thrown at the canvas and on burlap and hemp rather than cotton for depth and texture (and ridiculous doses of drama). It knows no rules and I can find in it the meaning that makes most sense for me. It’s so tempting, I think I will unpack my painting gear and give it a splash. Anselm Kiefer and Santiago Parra have emerged as my favourites as a result.

Surprise-surprise, however, one of the paintings that caught my eye follows tradition to the letter and builds on it with the help of a naughty ball. Jeff Koons placed a gazing ball in front of a replica of The Tiger Hunt (Peter Paul Rubens) in 2015 and through it – I like to think – he also said – “you can always reinvent how you do things and have a conversation about it; building meaning never ends.”

I didn’t find that gazing ball irreverent of the norm when I saw the Jeff Koons exhibition at the Ashmolean in May this year. I actually thought it was complimentary of the past – although the thought of pairing a random modern object with a world-famous five-hundred-year-old classic and taking the risk of messing with its meaning was irreverently ballsy indeed.

I freaking loved it.