The Case for a Contemporary Atelier:

Martin at the RCA

Reimagining Art Education with the Big Ideas of Modernism

Let’s face it—too many art schools today are skipping the bit where you actually learn how to paint. There’s a lot of talking, a lot of theory, and a lot of vague encouragement to “explore your practice.” But for a generation of emerging artists hungry to make strong, meaningful work, the basics—how to see, how to draw, how to build form and space with colour—are too often missing.

So what’s the answer? It’s not about going backwards. It’s not about copying casts in candlelight or pretending the 19th century never ended. What we need isn’t nostalgia—it’s reinvention.

It’s time to bring back the atelier.

But not the old one.

A new one.

Not one that take sides, but takes everything useful

A contemporary atelier that fuses solid technical training with the best, boldest ideas from 150 years of modern and contemporary art.

Why It’s Time to Rethink the Atelier Model

The old atelier had its strengths. Slow looking, serious commitment, deep technical skills. But it was narrow. It followed a single, mostly academic aesthetic. Today’s world is different—and so are today’s artists. We don’t need a return to tradition. We need an upgrade.

A contemporary atelier should give you the core visual skills: how to see accurately, how to use line and tone, how to paint light, how to control space and surface. But it should do so in a way that’s open, curious, and connected to what’s actually happened in painting since about 1874 (when Monet and Cézanne started quietly blowing up the whole system).

Learn From the Big Thinkers of Painting

This isn’t about teaching one “correct” style. A contemporary atelier draws from a whole toolbox of modern and postmodern thinking:

• Cézanne for structure

• Bonnard for colour

• Picasso for economy

• Giacometti for doubtful form and searching line

• Diebenkorn for surface

• Freud for psychological weight

• Joan Mitchell for energy and gesture

• The Bauhaus and Greenberg for design and materiality

• Even Degas, the anti impressionist classicist whose strange crops anticipated how photography would reshape painting forever

These artists didn’t just master the brush—they changed how we see. And that’s the kind of fluency artists need now: not just how to paint something, but how to use painting as a way to think, feel, and communicate.

Craft Meets Concept

Let’s drop the tired debate about skill vs. concept. The best painters know that materials are ideas. That the way you apply paint—thin or thick, hard-edged or broken, luminous or muddy—means something. A contemporary atelier teaches you to understand those choices and use them purposefully.

It’s not just about being technically slick. It’s about becoming fluent in the language of paint so you can say something with it. And yes, that includes slow, careful work, long hours, getting things wrong, and building real visual stamina. That’s not a punishment—it’s the path to clarity.

Slower, Smarter Learning—Anywhere, Anytime

The traditional atelier demanded you show up in person, stand at an easel on a fixed schedule, and keep pace with the studio around you. That model worked for some—but it left a lot of people out.

The beauty of the contemporary atelier is that it doesn’t just update the content—it updates the format. Through online and on-demand courses, it’s now possible to learn foundational painting skills and deep material thinking at your own pace.

You can take time to digest ideas. Rewatch demos. Pause to practice. Reflect. Reconnect. Repeat.

It’s not a shortcut—it’s a shift in tempo.

This more personalised, flexible approach creates space for slower, deeper learning—the kind that actually sticks. For many artists juggling work, caregiving, or health challenges, it’s not just convenient—it’s essential. The on-demand boult into a contemporary atelier respects your time and your rhythm, offering the kind of learning that syncs with your life instead of trying to steamroll it.

Slow thinking, slow making—finally, on your terms.

The Studio as a Thinking Space

One of the most radical things we can do now is slow down. In a hyper-digital, hyper-visual world, the act of taking time—to look, to make, to reconsider—has real power. A contemporary atelier isn’t just about acquiring technique. It’s about building a space where thinking happens through making.

Whether in a shared studio or at your kitchen table with a laptop and a palette, the atelier becomes a space of possibility—where hand and head reconnect, where failure is part of the method, and where serious practice replaces performative productivity.

Painting, in this model, is not just an output.

It’s a process. A mindset. A conversation.

Not Image-Makers, But Artists

Too much art education has quietly become illustration training. That’s fine if your goal is to produce neat outcomes on tight deadlines. But if you want to make work that’s alive, that holds ambiguity, that keeps asking questions long after it’s finished, you need deeper tools.

A contemporary atelier doesn’t illustrators. It trains artists. Artists who can draw on the full history of visual thought without being trapped by it. Artists who can move confidently between figuration and abstraction, across ideas and materials, because they actually understand how painting works.

Not Old vs. New—But Both

So no, this isn’t about going back to the 19th century. And it’s not about rejecting tradition, either. A contemporary atelier doesn’t take sides. It takes everything useful from the history of painting—from the precision of the academies to the raw energy of Abstract Expressionism—and teaches you how to use it now.

It’s not about teaching old answers.

It’s about helping you ask better questions.

Want to find or start a contemporary atelier? You’re not alone. The next wave of artists won’t come from a single school of thought—but they’ll all need somewhere to learn how to see, think, and paint with clarity. You’ll find that at The Martin Kinnear Studio. A new contemporary atelier for today’s artists.

Whether that starts at an easel or in an online session at midnight—it all counts.

This is how we train for the future.

Let me know and join the conversation contact me at The Martin Kinnear Studio