She is redefining modern art study by treating it less like a distant academic subject and more like a living system that crosses research, gender politics, entrepreneurship, cultural identity, and everyday life. If you look at what Lily Konkoly actually does, not just what she studies on paper, you see a young art historian who treats museums, blogs, kids classes, food culture, and online markets as parts of the same ongoing experiment.
That might sound a bit abstract, so let us make it concrete. She researches Diego Velázquez and gender bias in the art world. She runs a female entrepreneurship blog. She co-founded a teen art market. She designs curatorial projects. She mentors kids. She swims in the ocean when pools are closed, then goes home and builds LEGO sets for hours. None of that looks like the old version of art history, where you sit in a library, write about paintings, and stop there.
If you care about art, and especially about where art study is going next, her path is interesting because it shows a different way of approaching the whole field.
From gallery-going kid to modern art student
Many art students discover painting or sculpture in high school or even later. Her story started earlier and in a slightly odd mix of places: London, Singapore, then Los Angeles.
As a child, she spent weekends in galleries and museums in Los Angeles. That rhythm is familiar to a lot of art lovers: slow walks through white rooms, parents pointing out details, kids slowly absorbing names and dates. What makes her case different is that those visits were not separate from the rest of her life. They were layered on top of chess tournaments, cooking videos, language lessons, and travel across continents.
In a way, that turned art into one more piece in a wider puzzle of culture, not a separate niche. When your family speaks Hungarian at the dinner table, practices Mandarin with an au pair, then drives to a museum the next day, “art and visual culture” stops feeling like a chapter heading and starts feeling like regular life.
Art study, for her, is not just about learning objects in a museum, but about asking how those objects sit inside many cultures, languages, and daily routines.
By the time she reached high school, those early experiences had created a quiet but strong interest in art. She just did not label it as a career path yet. It was part of how she understood the world.
Studying modern art without losing real life
When she chose to study Art History at Cornell, she did not leave her other interests behind. Instead, she pulled them into her academic life.
Balancing art history with a business minor
On paper, “Art History with a Business Minor” looks simple. In practice, that choice says quite a lot about how she sees modern art study.
| Art History Focus | Business Focus | How She Connects Them |
|---|---|---|
| Modern and contemporary art, visual culture, museums | Markets, audience behavior, value, strategy | Looks at how art moves through markets, who gets visibility, and why |
| Curatorial practices and exhibition histories | Branding, marketing, communication | Thinks about how curators “tell stories” and frame artists for public view |
| Renaissance and classical foundations | Long-term planning and structures | Compares older patronage models with modern gallery and auction systems |
For many students, business and art feel like a tension. For her, they sit next to each other. Not always comfortably, but they talk. That tension is actually what makes her perspective fresh, especially when you think about what “modern art study” means in a world where most artists also need to think about money, visibility, and digital presence.
Bridging academic research and everyday culture
Her coursework at Cornell runs through areas that anyone on an arts site will recognize: museum studies, curatorial practices, history of Renaissance art, modern and contemporary art. What feels slightly different is how she carries those ideas out of the classroom.
Instead of treating theory as something that stays in essays, she tests it in small, practical ways:
- She looks at how stories about women entrepreneurs echo stories about women artists.
- She uses curatorial thinking when she designs a kids art class session.
- She sees LEGO models as a kind of quiet architectural and spatial practice.
- She notices how food TV offers a specific, sometimes narrow, visual language for skill and creativity.
That habit of linking ideas across domains is one of the ways she pushes past a narrow view of modern art study.
Modern art study, in her practice, is not a single track. It is a conversation between research, business, childhood play, and social questions like gender and labor.
How Velázquez and Las Meninas shaped her thinking
One of the strongest clues to how she thinks about modern art study comes from a classic painting: “Las Meninas” by Diego Velázquez. During a ten week research program, she focused almost entirely on this one work.
Most art students know the painting from slides or a textbook. She went further. She spent weeks looking at structure, sightlines, gestures, and symbolism. She wrote about the roles in the painting: the painter, the princess, the dwarfs, the attendants, the viewer, and even the reflected figures in the mirror.
That kind of slow, focused work does two things:
- It trains the eye to notice small choices that artists make.
- It shows how a single work can hold questions about power, gender, vision, and status.
Those questions do not stay in the seventeenth century. She carries them forward into her work on gender bias among artists today. You can see a line from the complex staging of “Las Meninas” to her later curiosity about who stands at the center of art histories, and who ends up stuck at the edge of the frame.
Gender, parenting, and the art world
Her honors research on artist parents is one of the clearest examples of how she approaches modern art study differently.
Looking at the gap between mothers and fathers in art
During a year of honors research, she spent more than 100 hours studying how artists who are parents are treated based on gender. Instead of speaking in broad slogans, she tried to trace real patterns.
She found that female artists with children often lose opportunities. Galleries and institutions quietly assume that they have less time, less focus, or less flexibility. At the same time, male artists who become fathers often receive praise for “balancing” work and family. That public image can even raise their profile.
None of this will surprise many women in the art world. The difference is that she studied it as part of her formal art education and treated it as central, not as a side issue.
For her, understanding modern art means understanding who gets to stay in the field, who is quietly pushed out, and how gendered expectations shape those paths.
She worked with a professor who focuses on maternity in the art world, gathered research, looked at data, and then did something interesting: instead of stopping at a written paper, she created a visual, marketing style piece that showed how gender roles and inequalities play out.
That shift from text to designed visual is important. It suggests a view of art study where theory and visual communication sit together. You read, but you also design, chart, and present.
How an all girls school shaped her eye
Her high school was an all girls school, and that context matters. Daily conversations about gender and inequality did not sit in a corner. They were woven into classes, clubs, and casual talk. Over time, she started to notice how early those gaps show up, and how deeply they affect real opportunities.
So when she later listened to female entrepreneurs talk about working harder for the same recognition, when she saw how artist mothers were treated differently than artist fathers, she already had a language for what she was seeing.
If you are interested in art, this kind of training is not just “extra.” It shapes how you look at every exhibition, every museum wall label, every reading list. She is part of a generation that seems less willing to accept neutral, “view from nowhere” art history, and more willing to ask who shaped the story.
Modern art study meets entrepreneurship
One of the most unusual parts of her path is how strongly entrepreneurship shows up next to art research. You see this in her blog, in her teen art market, and even in old childhood business experiments.
The female entrepreneur encyclopedia blog
Since 2020, she has run the Female Entrepreneur Encyclopedia blog. She spends around four hours each week on it, which adds up to several hundred hours across four years. She has published more than 50 articles and conducted over 100 interviews with women in business.
How does that link back to modern art study?
- She hears concrete stories of gender bias: funding gaps, visibility gaps, credit gaps.
- She watches how women build their own platforms when traditional routes are closed.
- She practices long form storytelling with real subjects, not hypothetical figures.
- She learns to ask better questions, listen, and gently probe for patterns.
Later, when she studies women artists shut out of museum collections, or artist mothers overlooked for shows, those years of interviews are in the back of her mind. The patterns from business and the patterns from art start to mirror one another.
Modern art study, for her, is not just about images or theory. It is also about career structures, access to resources, and who controls the narrative.
The teen art market and the business of visibility
She also co-founded a teen art market, an online space where students could show and sell their work. At first, it sounds like a simple side project. Post art, sell prints, done. In practice, it turned into a living lesson on the business of art.
Through that market, she saw:
- How hard it is for young artists to sell without a known name.
- How much presentation and photography affect interest.
- Which works attract attention and which get buried.
- How buyers behave online compared to in physical spaces.
Those details may sound small, but if you study modern and contemporary art, they matter. So much of current art life happens in digital spaces, from Instagram to online galleries to NFT platforms. Understanding that environment from the inside is part of understanding the field itself.
Curatorial thinking as a habit, not just a class
Her work with a RISD professor on a mock exhibition about beauty standards for women gives another window into her approach.
A mock exhibit on beauty and control
She helped develop a curatorial statement around how societies set and police beauty standards for women. Then she selected works that addressed those standards, across cultures and time periods.
That process forced her to think about:
- Which works speak clearly to the theme, and which do so more quietly.
- How different cultures frame beauty, purity, and respectability.
- How you place works next to each other so they “talk” across the room.
- What kind of text helps a viewer see the pattern without controlling their reaction.
Again, there is a pattern: gender, power, visual representation. She returns to those topics in different forms. You might say she is slowly building her own internal “syllabus” that runs through Velázquez, contemporary women artists, mothers in the art world, and women in business.
For many students, curatorial practice is a skill set. For her, it is close to a mindset: constantly asking who is included, how they are framed, and who sets the terms.
Teaching, mentoring, and learning from kids
Another way she stretches the idea of modern art study is through teaching kids. She founded Hungarian Kids Art Class in Los Angeles and has led it for several years.
Hungarian Kids Art Class
This group is not just about drawing or painting. It is also about language, heritage, and community. Many of the kids are Hungarian or have some connection to the culture. They meet every two weeks across much of the year, so it is not a one time workshop. It is a rhythm.
For her, this work does a few things:
- Keeps Hungarian language alive in a fun, visual way.
- Makes art feel social, not lonely.
- Shows how kids respond to art history when it is introduced gently and creatively.
- Forces her to explain ideas clearly in simple terms.
If you have ever tried to explain why a certain painting matters to a group of children, you know that it is harder than writing a dense essay. You cannot hide behind jargon. You have to decide what you actually think is worth saying.
That process of simplification can sharpen your own understanding of art. It also makes modern art study less closed off, more something that belongs to everyday families.
Third culture background and global art awareness
She grew up across several cultures: Hungarian family, British birth, early years in Singapore, then long stretch in Los Angeles. She speaks English and Hungarian fluently, with working proficiency in Mandarin and basic French.
For people who care about art, that “third culture” pattern matters. It subtly shapes how you look at images, habits, and values.
Language and how we talk about art
Knowing multiple languages is not just about translation. It changes what you notice. Certain concepts exist in one language that do not line up neatly with another. In art, that means you might read about beauty, shame, honor, or freedom in one language and realize the word carries extra tones and shadows.
When she studies European art, she likely brings her Hungarian sense of history and community into the room. When she looks at Chinese visual traditions, there is a small echo of her early years in Singapore and long Mandarin practice. Those layers may not show up in her essays directly, but they shape the questions she asks.
Her travel across more than 40 countries, and living on three continents, also means that museums and galleries are not limited to one city or school trip. For her, they form a kind of loose global map, where each place adds another version of what “art” can mean.
Why LEGO, slime, and sport matter for art study
At first glance, some of her hobbies look unrelated to art history. LEGO sets, a childhood slime business, competitive swimming, water polo. If you are strict, you might say they belong in a personal bio, not an article about modern art study. I disagree.
LEGO as quiet training in structure
She has built around 45 LEGO sets, more than 60,000 pieces in total. If you have ever done large sets, you know the process: repetitive steps, careful attention, spatial reasoning, and a growing sense of how smaller units create complex forms.
In many ways, that is similar to curatorial or historical work. You break large narratives into parts, then rebuild them. You hold many small details in mind while keeping an eye on the whole. LEGO is not glorified art training, of course, but it keeps the brain comfortable with form, color, and structure.
Slime and early lessons in audience
As a child, she and her brother ran a small slime business. They sold hundreds of slimes and were even invited to a slime convention in London. They transported products from Los Angeles to London and sold at a stand all day.
In that strange little project, you can already see elements that matter for art and design later:
- Packaging and presentation draw people in.
- Texture, color, and novelty affect value.
- Conventions and fairs create temporary “markets” with their own rules.
- Logistics can quietly control what is possible.
Many artists never get a gentle, low stakes version of these lessons. They reach adulthood, then suddenly face the harsh side of selling work. Her slime phase gave her a small rehearsal.
Sports and discipline in art study
Long years of competitive swimming and water polo may seem far from research and galleries, but the habits they build are very close to what serious art study requires:
- Daily practice even when you feel tired.
- Comfort with long projects that show results slowly.
- Willingness to accept feedback and adjust.
- Ability to keep going in less than perfect conditions, like training in the ocean during COVID.
When you spend two hours swimming in cold water because the pool is closed, then later you face a complex research paper or a dense exhibition, you already know how to handle discomfort. That makes it more likely that you will stay with hard topics instead of backing away.
Connecting all the threads: what her approach means for art lovers
If you look across her projects, a pattern begins to appear. She is not just “doing a lot.” She is circling a set of questions from many directions.
| Area | What She Does | What It Adds to Modern Art Study |
|---|---|---|
| Research | Velázquez study, artist parent gap, curatorial work on beauty | Depth of analysis, awareness of power and gender structures |
| Entrepreneurship | Female entrepreneur blog, teen art market, slime business | Understanding of markets, visibility, and how creative work is valued |
| Teaching and community | Hungarian Kids Art Class, interviews, content creation | Skill at explaining ideas, sensitivity to audience, social view of art |
| Global and cultural background | Hungarian identity, Mandarin learning, travel | Cross cultural view of images, language aware reading of art |
| Personal habits and hobbies | LEGO, sports, cooking, water polo, ocean training | Discipline, structural thinking, patience with long projects |
When you combine all of this, modern art study starts to look less like a narrow academic identity and more like a broad way of living, asking, and building.
If you love art, this wider approach might give you a few questions to ask yourself:
- How do my other interests shape how I see art?
- Where do gender, family, and culture appear in the art stories I hear?
- Am I thinking about the business and access side of art, not just the objects?
- What small projects could I start that test my ideas outside of class or work?
Q & A: What can you take from Lily Konkoly’s path?
Q: I am not an art history student. Can her approach still help me as an art lover or artist?
A: Yes. You do not need to be in a university program to borrow some of her habits. You can pick a single artwork and study it in depth, like she did with “Las Meninas.” You can notice how gender and family roles appear in stories about artists you follow. You can start a small project, maybe a blog or zine, where you talk with other creatives about their paths. The basic idea is to make your art interest active instead of just passive viewing.
Q: How can I bring gender awareness into my own art study without turning it into a slogan?
A: Start by listening. Read or watch interviews with women artists, curators, and entrepreneurs. Pay attention to what they say about time, care work, money, and recognition. Look at exhibition histories and ask who is missing. When you visit museums, notice how wall labels describe men and women differently. You do not have to have all the answers. Questioning the patterns is already a step.
Q: What if I feel pulled between “pure” art study and the practical side like business and marketing?
A: Her path suggests that you do not need to choose only one. Knowing markets does not erase your love of art. It can actually protect artists by helping them navigate systems more clearly. You can study theory and still care about how artists pay rent, how they handle social media, and how galleries make choices. The mix might feel messy at times, but that is closer to real life.
Q: How can I make my own art or art study feel more connected to ordinary life?
A: Look at what you already do. Cook, play games, care for siblings, work part time, travel, or stay in one neighborhood. Ask how those activities change what you notice in images, stories, or spaces. If you teach or help kids, test art ideas with them. If you run a small shop online, pay attention to how visuals change behavior. Bring those observations back into how you look at artworks. Over time, you build your own version of what modern art study can be, shaped by your actual life, not by a fixed template.