Bored Panda reached out to Milan, the person behind "Art Memes Central," to delve into both the Instagram page and his background. Milan shared that growing up in different places has given him unique observations and insights into people and life in general. "I started this page a little over 2 years ago, without any expectations, just as a creative outlet and it's almost surreal to see that my page now has reached over 500,000 followers and counting!"
Milan shared what inspired him to start the "Art Memes Central" page: "I was scrolling on Reddit one day, and I came across a painting of Bosch called 'Garden of Earthly Delights' and it was so intricate, surreal and some of the scenes in it were borderline hilarious. I immediately thought of a caption in my mind to go along with a scene in the painting. And I thought maybe I could post it on Instagram to see if others found this 'art meme' funny. This meme ended up getting barely 3 likes but I really enjoyed the process of making a meme from a painting and then posting it on the internet.
I slowly started trying to find more and more paintings that I could caption and make a meme out of, and this process gave me a lot of joy because finding a painting to make a meme out of is like finding a rough diamond and I like to imagine that when I make a meme using that painting, I polish that rough diamond and make it more accessible for the world to admire."
Looking at how accurate and funny these memes are, we asked Milan how he goes about choosing the art pieces for his work. "I remember reading an Eminem interview once, in which he said that when he hears an instrumental, the tone and the frequency of the instrumental 'tells' him the lyrics for the song. I find this concept really similar to the way I go about selecting art pieces for my memes," the creator shared. "I pay close attention to the scene of the painting, the people in it, their expressions, body language, and the overall mood and theme of the painting. After that, I try to find an apt caption or dialogue that would best suit the overall theme of the painting, so the meme turns out to be as realistic as possible. It's generally easier with some styles, like medieval paintings which usually have comical and flat styles."
According to Milan, coming up with captions is all about finding the right painting. "And by 'right', I mean a painting that speaks to me. I spend quite some time browsing paintings on Pinterest, Reddit, and Instagram. Whenever I see a painting that has some potential, potential in the sense that I like the mood of the painting, or the expressions of the subject, or the body language of the subject, then I try and come up with a caption and dialogue to give a humorous angle to what is happening in the painting. For example, if there are two people in the painting having a serious discussion, I would give a funny twist to it and caption it as if the discussion taking place is on a very insignificant or trivial topic to exaggerate the message of the painting and make it funny for the audience."
Milan shared that the most rewarding aspect of running "Art Memes Central" is being able to bring a smile to the faces of people all around the world. "'Art Memes Central' reaches 4 million+ accounts every month on average. This means that every month my work is reaching millions of people and hopefully making their day slightly better. I regularly get messages from people telling me how they wait for my posts every day because it's the only thing that can make them smile and feel better.
Another rewarding aspect of running this page is making art more accessible. Oftentimes, we think of art as something that only belongs in a museum, but I want to show through my work that art belongs in our everyday lives too, because art has the power to inspire so much positive change. I've received a lot of messages from art teachers and art professors telling me how they're using my memes in their courses and how much their students appreciate them. And knowing all this makes my work very rewarding to me."
