Wherever you stand on the Snapchat vs. Instagram vs. Facebook Stories debate, it’s undeniable that all three social media platforms are designed to keep us scrolling through their feeds into eternity. But there are differences between them. Snapchat is built for one-to-one communication (this is the app that started as Silicon Valley’s answer to the battlecry “send nudes,” after all), and Facebook delivers our daily deluge of [fake] news. But for anyone really interested in visuals and aesthetics, Instagram is the platform to watch.
Photographers, painters, sculptors, illustrators, and other artists have found that Instagram is a key tool to promote their artwork and gain followings of loyal fans and collectors. Even street artists, whose work has always been inherently temporary, can upload their wheatpastes and tags to the digital museum that is Instagram. It’s no wonder that some artists are even embedding the social media platform into their work. Take Yung Jake, an artist famous for his emoji portraits of celebrities, who’s used Instagram in his video pieces. Or Richard Prince, who sold enlarged images from Instagram for $100,000 a few years back. As these artists know, the platform is the perfect medium for promoting their creations — and it’s also an experimental place that often becomes the subject of their work in clever ways.
If you’re an art lover, someone looking for visual inspiration, or a person who’s just bored and wants to be entertained by interesting things, following a bunch of artists' accounts on Instagram is a no-brainer. Lucky for you, we’ve compiled a list of the best creators showcasing their work on the social media platform. Check out our list of The Best Artists to Follow on Instagram, and hopefully you’ll have something to scroll through besides your friends’ shots of their new sneakers. (But if that’s your thing, we have a list for that, too).