The Purpose of Art

What The Sun and The Moon exhibition reminded me about seeing the world differently

Exhibition: The Sun and The Moon: Art Inspired by the Celestial, Saatchi Gallery, London

Visited: August 2026

In August 2026, I travelled to Mallorca to watch a total solar eclipse. There was something extraordinary about standing beneath something so familiar and yet suddenly experiencing it in a completely different way. The Sun, something we see almost every day, became the focus of everyone's attention. For a brief moment, something constant felt completely new. So, a few weeks later, it felt fitting to visit The Sun and The Moon: Art Inspired by the Celestial at the Saatchi Gallery.

There has always been something captivating about the Sun and Moon. They are perhaps two of the most constant features of our existence, yet throughout history they have been interpreted in countless different ways. They have been objects of scientific observation, symbols of mythology and religion, sources of mystery and inspiration, and simply things of beauty.

Walking through the exhibition, I was struck by how something so familiar could produce such varied artistic responses. The Sun is still the Sun. The Moon is still the Moon. But our interpretation of them isn't constant. And perhaps that is one of the most interesting things about art: it gives us the opportunity to look at something we think we already know, and see it differently.

The exhibition brought together works across different periods, cultures, mediums and scales. There were paintings, sculpture, textiles, photography and large-scale installations. Some works felt abstract and geometric, while others were more traditional or figurative. There were materials that reflected and caught the light, including mosaic and gold leaf, alongside rusted metals and other more tactile surfaces.

The variety was part of what made the exhibition so interesting. The same celestial subjects could be transformed completely depending on the artist, the medium and the scale. A mosaic can capture and fragment light as you move around it. Gold leaf can make light part of the artwork itself. A sculpture can take something that exists millions of miles away and give it physical presence. A large-scale installation can make the viewer feel as though they are standing within the artwork rather than simply looking at it. Luke Jerram's enormous Helios, for example, turns the Sun into something monumental and immersive. Elsewhere, more modest works interpret the celestial through colour, shape, texture and symbolism.

There was also something particularly interesting about the repeated use of circular and geometric forms. In some works, they felt mystical or symbolic; in others, almost scientific. It created an interesting meeting point between art and science, between our desire to understand the world around us and our desire simply to wonder at it. Perhaps that is why the Sun and Moon have been such enduring subjects for artists. They allow us to observe something that is objectively there, while leaving almost infinite room for interpretation.

We can all look at the same Moon, but we don't necessarily see the same thing. One person might see a scientific object. Another might see mythology. Another might see a symbol of time, change or renewal. Someone else might simply see the quiet beauty of a moonlit sky.

Art doesn't necessarily change the thing we are looking at. It changes the lens through which we look at it. This is something I find particularly interesting about the relationship between art and the natural world. Artists can take an observation from nature and translate it into something entirely new. A colour, a shape, a texture or a movement can become the starting point for an artwork that no longer needs to resemble its original inspiration. And this is where the exhibition made me think about how we choose art for our own homes.

When we curate a collection, we aren't simply choosing objects that we find aesthetically pleasing. We are choosing our interpretation of the world around us. We are deciding what colours, shapes, textures and ideas we want to bring into our surroundings. The same principle applies to the artwork itself. A piece doesn't need to literally depict the Sun to bring a sense of sunlight into a room. Warm tones might create the feeling of golden evening light. Reflective or metallic surfaces might capture the way sunlight moves across a space. Circular forms might quietly reference the Moon or the celestial without being an obvious representation of it.

The same artwork can feel entirely different depending on its surroundings. Light changes throughout the day. Colours interact with the materials and furnishings around them. A piece that feels energetic in one room might feel serene in another. The space becomes another lens through which we experience the work. That feels like an important lesson from an exhibition centred around something as constant as the Sun and Moon. What we see is not always simply what is there. It is shaped by perspective, interpretation and context.

The Sun and Moon have been observed by humans for thousands of years, but we have never stopped finding new ways to represent them. Artists continue to look at the same celestial bodies and see something different. Perhaps that is one of the great purposes of art: not necessarily to show us something we've never seen before, but to encourage us to look again. To see something familiar from a different perspective. To notice the light, the shape, the texture or the feeling that we might otherwise have overlooked.