The Delusional Artists subreddit was created in April, 2013, and it has blossomed into quite the impressive art gallery since then. It currently has 514k members, or “pieces of art available” as they call them, and members are constantly uploading artwork they spot online and in person by artists who might need to have a reality check. There are several topics that commonly come up in the group, including “deluded artist”, “meta'', “high price”, “aBsTrAcT”, “arrogant artist”, and simply “bad art”. 

The titles are relatively self-explanatory, of course, but they give some indication of what the most common examples of delusional artists entail. For example, it is not uncommon to find a piece being sold online, perhaps on Facebook Marketplace or Ebay, that does not look like it took very much skill to create… That’s fine if an artist wants to give away their work for free, but when a marker drawing that looks like it was done by a 7-year-old is being listed for $400? That’s the perfect piece to be shared on Delusional Artists.

To gain some insight on this topic from an artist, we reached out to Jill Arwen Posadas, a professional painter who specializes in depicting monsters. First, we asked Jill if she believes anyone can be an artist. “Honestly, I think anyone can be an artist,” she told Bored Panda. “That is, everyone has it in them to have ideas and to find creative ways to express or communicate those ideas, which is what I think an artist is.”

“I guess the question for this article is whether anyone can become a career artist, or, the term I know is ‘practicing artist’,” Jill explained. “For this, I'd say it takes more than just having ideas. You'd have to really commit and really work hard to hone your skills, and there's just no shortcut to that. And when I say commit, as in, you're still going to push on and continue to create even when things get hard. For example, people don't like your work, you're not able to sell, that kind of thing. Not everyone is able to commit or is willing to work hard.”

We also asked Jill what she thinks qualifies someone as a “delusional artist”. “I feel a little weird answering this question because I'm pretty sure there are people out there who would call me a delusional artist,” Jill told Bored Panda. She noted a personal example of how one of her past pieces might have looked like it could earn a spot on this list, but even if it wasn’t her best work, she was not on Facebook Marketplace attempting to sell that piece for $600. “I guess, it could be said that all artists are delusional in one way or another,” she noted.

“For this article, we might define a delusional artist as someone who didn't exactly commit or work hard as I mentioned in my previous answer,” Jill told Bored Panda. “Thinking that they could put in the barest minimum (or maybe even zero) effort and maybe (I say this delicately) make some easy money by selling their work for maybe a lot more than it might be worth. Delusional as in ‘they think their work is worth that much’.”

Jill explained that she might not deem these artists as delusional, but instead, “Either they are relatively inexperienced, or, maybe they are up to something shady.”