The Observer reports on London’s struggling artists:

We’ll get to that creative critical faculty in a second.

We’ll get to that too.

The cost of renting a studio in which to be abuzz with creativity is, we’re told, a major issue:

Ah yes, the engine room. Powering the city of London with their ceaseless shovelling.

The indignity.

Indeed, of those surveyed, only 12% “can support themselves solely through art.” Given such difficulties, the words supply and demand spring to mind, and readers may wonder whether a different, more viable line of work may be in order. Or at least some relocation – say, to a place where studio rents and general living expenses are much more affordable. However, Ms Kwan, our successful artist, is having none of that:

At which point, readers may suspect that the imperative is not so much being creative, but being creative in London, a notoriously expensive city, but in which one can draw attention to the fact that one lives and works in London, a notoriously expensive city. Thereby glowing with a kind of location status.

That bottom of the pile business must really chafe.

Readers may also note the article’s, shall we say, coyness regarding the art on offer – all that cruelly underfunded creativity. None of which is displayed to sway readers of the Observer. The nearest we get is a photo of Ms Kwan standing next to a creation that we cannot actually see, and a photo of Grayson Perry in a hideous frock.

Poking about elsewhere reveals that Ms Kwan’s area of expertise is “political and ecological positioning through fine art practice,” as seen so boldly here:

It’s a “sensory banquet,” the creation of which “had a profound emotional and conceptual effect on my sense of the relationships between objects, personhood, and ancestral and collective meaning.”

As you can imagine.

Other dizzying creations can be seen – nay, beheld – here and here.

Given the aesthetic uplift conjured into being via piles of plastic milk cartons, it is of course astounding that Ms Kwan and her equally high-minded peers, all doubtless schooled in political “positioning,” aren’t feeling sufficiently rewarded.

“It is like a hostile environment now,” says Ms Kwan. A sentiment that may conceivably be shared by those members of the general public who venture to art venues in search of aesthetics and objects of wonderment, but who find only unattractive tat, ponderous press releases, and piles of plastic milk cartons.

If the basic thrust of the Observer article sounds familiar – the need to be seen being creative in a suitably happening city, while living above one’s means – you may be thinking of this Guardian article. In which, a self-exalting novelist named Brigid Delaney tells us that creative people, people much like herself, must live in locales befitting their potential and importance, not their budget. And hence the imperative for public subsidy.

You, taxpayer, come hither. And bring your wallet.