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Lily Konkoly is redefining young women in art by refusing to stay in a single lane. She studies art history, researches gender bias, runs a long‑term blog on female entrepreneurs, co‑founded a teen art market, and still finds time to teach kids and build LEGO sets. She treats art not as a separate, distant field but as part of everyday life, work, and identity. If you look at what she has already done, you see a picture of a young woman who treats art, research, and business as one connected practice. You can see more about her or reach out to her directly through her site, where you can contact Lily Konkoly.

For people interested in art, her story is useful because it shows a path that is not only about making work or writing about it. It is about shaping the conditions in which art is made, shown, sold, and valued, especially for women and for young artists who are usually treated as a side note.

From museum kid to Cornell researcher

Lily did not grow up in a studio, but she did grow up around art.

Her family spent many weekends visiting galleries and museums in Los Angeles. It was not some formal plan. They just went. Downtown, different galleries, different shows. Over time, this rhythm of seeing work in person built a kind of visual memory for her. You start to see patterns, you start to notice who is on the wall and who is not, which is often just as telling.

Those early visits did a few concrete things for her:

• They made museums feel normal instead of intimidating.
• They showed her that art history is not just in books, it is on actual walls.
• They gave her early exposure to how exhibitions are curated and framed.

Now she is at Cornell University, studying Art History with a Business minor. That combination already says a lot. Many young art students are told, in an almost casual way, that they have to choose: either be serious about art or be serious about business. Her choice is to study both, properly, at the same time.

At Cornell, her coursework includes:

• Art and Visual Culture
• History of Renaissance Art
• Modern and Contemporary Art
• Museum Studies
• Curatorial Practices

So she is building a strong base in how art is made, shown, and written about. At the same time, the business minor is not just a safety net. It is a way of asking: how do artists and art workers actually survive in the world?

The Las Meninas project: learning to see through layers

One key step in her art path was the Scholar Launch Research Program, where she spent 10 weeks studying Diego Velázquez’s “Las Meninas.”

If you are into art, you already know that “Las Meninas” is one of those works that everyone references. It is complex, self‑aware, and difficult to pin down. For a high school student, spending a full summer on a single painting can sound intense. But this is where you see how Lily’s mind works.

She did not just write a quick essay. She:

• Analyzed the composition and the strange play of viewpoints.
• Looked at how Velázquez placed himself inside the scene.
• Studied the court setting and the politics around it.
• Explored the painting as a kind of conversation about who gets to look and who is seen.

That process trained her eye for detail and context. When you spend that much time with one work, you start to notice how art holds power, not just beauty.

“Spending a full summer on ‘Las Meninas’ taught Lily how to slow down her looking, and how to read a painting as a system of choices, not just as an image.”

For many young art lovers, this kind of research can feel too academic. But here, it is part of how she learns to ask better questions about the role of women, the gaze, and authorship in art. Questions that return in her later work on gender in the art world.

Growing up between worlds: a third culture art lens

Lily was born in London, spent early childhood in Singapore, then grew up in Los Angeles. Her family is Hungarian, and almost all of their extended family lives in Europe. So summers often meant flights, visits, and shifting languages.

This kind of background shapes how you see culture and images. There is no single “normal.” There are many.

Here is a simple way to map her early geography:

Place	Age	Key influences
London	Birth to ~2.5 years	First exposure to European city life and museums (through family stories and visits back)
Singapore	Toddler years	Half-American, half-Chinese preschool, first Mandarin lessons
Los Angeles	Childhood and teens	Gallery and museum visits, Pacific Palisades community, early small businesses, sports teams
Europe (summers)	Every year	Hungarian language, family culture, exposure to European art and cities

She grew up fluent in English and Hungarian. She also studied Mandarin for years, with au pairs who helped her keep the language active at home. In the U.S., Hungarian turned into a “secret” language that she could share with her siblings in public spaces.

For someone working in art, this matters. Language shapes how you think, and having several languages in your head affects how you read images and stories.

“Lily’s third culture background shows up in her art thinking: she does not assume one center of the art world, and she pays attention to how context changes meaning.”

If you have ever gone from a museum in one country to a very different collection in another, you know how quickly your idea of “important” art can shift. Lily had that feeling from early childhood, so for her, questioning the standard canon is not a phase, it is normal.

Being a young woman in art, and choosing to study gender

There is another thread running through Lily’s story: gender.

She attended Marlborough School, an all‑girls school in Los Angeles. In that environment, gender inequality was not something distant or abstract. It was a regular topic. That experience mattered later when she started looking at the art world with a more critical eye.

During her senior year, she took an honors research course and designed her own project. She chose to study the gap between maternity and paternity in the art world.

At first, that might sound like a niche topic, but when you look at actual careers, it is a huge issue. She found that:

• Women artists who become mothers often face fewer opportunities.
• They are assumed to have less time or less commitment to their work.
• Men who become fathers sometimes receive more praise and visibility.
• Fatherhood can be seen as a sign of stability, even “depth,” in male artists.

Lily worked with a professor who studied maternity in the art field, collected data, did reading, and turned all of that into a research paper and a visual, marketing‑style piece. That second part is key. She was not only interested in the theory. She wanted to show how these gender roles are still embedded in our culture in a way people can see quickly.

If you are in art, you have probably seen the gap she is talking about:

• Gallery rosters where male artists far outnumber women.
• Press coverage that praises male artists for being “dedicated fathers” while barely mentioning women’s caregiving roles or treating them as a weakness.
• Residencies and fellowships that assume long periods away from home, which can be harder for mothers.

Her project does not solve that problem, and she would not claim it does. But it trains her to ask better questions. Who gets support at critical career points? Who gets framed as serious? Who is allowed to be both an artist and a parent without suspicion?

“By studying how maternity and paternity are treated in the art world, Lily has chosen to face one of the uncomfortable truths of the field instead of turning away.”

That choice is part of how she is redefining what it looks like to be a young woman in art: not just making or studying art, but looking straight at the systems around it.

Teen Art Market: giving young artists a place to sell

Lily did not stop at research. She co‑founded the Teen Art Market, a digital space where students could show and sell their work.

If you have ever tried to sell art as a teenager, you know the usual options are limited:

• School fairs
• Social media posts that may or may not reach buyers
• Occasional local events

The Teen Art Market tried to create something more stable, even if it was small. A simple online gallery where student artists could:

• Upload images of their work
• Set prices
• Test how it feels to sell art to real buyers

For Lily, this was not just about helping friends sell prints. It was a kind of live lesson in the economics of art. How do you price painting or photography when you have no name recognition yet? How do you describe your work so people understand it without over‑explaining? What does it feel like when something does not sell?

She saw firsthand how difficult it can be for young artists, especially girls, to state the value of their work without apologizing or undercutting themselves.

From an art perspective, projects like this matter because they connect theory to practice. She studies curatorial approaches in class, then helps build a small, digital space where those questions become real.

Hungarian Kids Art Class: teaching as part of art practice

Another part of Lily’s story is teaching.

She founded the Hungarian Kids Art Class in Los Angeles and led it for about three years. It was not a one‑off workshop. She ran bi‑weekly sessions, over many weeks each year, gathering kids who were curious about art and often about Hungarian language and culture too.

This project blended several of her interests:

• Art education
• Hungarian culture and language
• Community building among kids and families

From the outside, it might sound simple. Kids, art supplies, some lessons. But for anyone who has taught, there is more going on:

• You learn how to explain basic art concepts in clear language.
• You see how young kids react to color, shape, and story without the filters adults have.
• You start to see how cultural elements, like Hungarian motifs or folktales, can be woven into projects.

For Lily, this kind of teaching helps form her sense of what art can do. It is not only for white walls and silent rooms. It can be a tool for kids to feel more confident, more connected to their roots, or just more curious.

Art history students sometimes get stuck in text and theory. Her work with children keeps her in contact with actual making and with the messy, fun side of art that often gets lost in academic writing.

Female Entrepreneur Encyclopedia: listening to 100+ women

Outside of strict art spaces, Lily has spent years running a blog called Female Entrepreneur Encyclopedia. She started it in high school and has written more than 50 articles over four years.

At first, this might look separate from art, but if you look closer, it is deeply related.

On the blog, she:

• Researches women founders and leaders
• Conducts interviews with female entrepreneurs from around the world
• Writes up their stories in clear, accessible language

Over time, she has spoken with over 100 women. Many of those conversations include themes that are very familiar in art:

• Being underestimated because of gender
• Having to prove yourself more than male peers
• Balancing work with caregiving or family expectations
• Struggling for visibility in fields dominated by men

Hearing these stories again and again makes it difficult to pretend that gender inequality is a rare exception. It starts to look like a pattern that runs through business, art, and many other fields.

For readers interested in art, this matters. The art world does not sit outside social structures. It shares many of the same patterns as business, including unequal pay, imbalanced representation, and differences in how risk and success are interpreted for men and women.

By writing about female entrepreneurs, Lily learns how women talk about their own success, how they frame their struggles, and how they build communities. Those lessons can be carried into curatorial work, art writing, or policy work around museums and galleries.

Sports, LEGO, and “non‑art” interests that shape an art mind

An easy mistake when talking about people in art is to cut away everything that does not look like art. Lily’s story is fuller than that.

She has been a competitive swimmer for about ten years, then played water polo for three years in high school. During COVID, when pools were closed, her team trained in the ocean, swimming for two hours a day. That kind of routine builds:

• Discipline
• Time management
• A sense of team and shared effort

Those qualities do not sound artistic at first, but think about the long, quiet work behind a big exhibition, a long research paper, or a series of artworks. Sticking with a project that takes months is not that different from training for meets.

She is also deeply into LEGO. She has built around 45 sets, totaling more than 60,000 pieces. That might sound like a fun hobby and nothing more, but assembling complex sets trains spatial thinking and patience. Architects and designers often talk about how early play with building toys shaped how they think about structure.

For someone studying art history and curatorial practice, that sense of structure is not trivial. How do works fit together in a room? How do you build a sequence from one piece to the next so visitors feel guided but not pushed?

Then there is the cooking and baking. Growing up, her family spent a lot of time in the kitchen and even filmed cooking videos for YouTube. They were invited onto shows like Rachael Ray and Food Network, offers they turned down to keep their summers free for travel and family time.

That choice shows something about her values. Big media exposure is tempting, especially for kids, but she and her family protected time for their own plans. For someone who might move deeper into the art world, where publicity and pacing can become intense, setting personal limits like that is not a small thing.

From small businesses to art careers: entrepreneurship as part of art

When Lily and her siblings were younger, they did not just sit with hobbies. They turned some into small businesses.

Two simple examples:

• Bracelet sales at the local farmers market
• A slime business that grew large enough to take them to a London slime convention

At the slime convention, they sold hundreds of containers in a single day, after hauling product from Los Angeles to London. It was chaotic and intense. For a kid or teen, that is a real lesson in production, logistics, and dealing with strangers who are buying something you made.

People in the art field often talk about the “art market” as if it is distant, something you step into later. Lily started learning how markets feel from childhood, one bracelet and one slime jar at a time.

So when she later co‑founded the Teen Art Market, she was not guessing how sales events work. She had lived them on a small scale. That background helps her see artist careers as a mix of:

• Creative work
• Communication with buyers, curators, and collaborators
• Practical tasks like shipping, pricing, and scheduling

If you are an art student or young artist reading this, you might recognize your own efforts in her story. The difference is that Lily does not treat those “side” projects as separate from her art path. She treats them as part of it.

How Lily is reshaping the idea of “young woman in art”

So what exactly is different about what Lily is doing? If we put aside nice words for a moment and look carefully, a few patterns stand out.

1. She treats research and practice as linked, not opposed

Many people assume that art history and art making are different worlds. Lily keeps them close together:

• She does research on “Las Meninas” and then thinks about gaze and power in current art.
• She studies maternity and paternity in the art world and then sees how that shapes real careers.
• She works on curatorial concepts and tests ideas through the Teen Art Market and mock exhibits.

For young women in art, this is a useful model. You do not have to pick between thinking and doing. You can build a path where each group of skills supports the others.

2. She keeps gender questions at the center, not as a side topic

Lily’s focus on gender is not a late addition. It is woven through:

• Her high school research on artist parents
• Her blog on female entrepreneurs
• Her collaboration with a RISD professor on a mock exhibit about beauty standards for women

That RISD project involved writing a detailed curatorial statement and selecting pieces that question how beauty is framed across cultures and history. If you think about the long tradition of idealized female bodies in art, and the smaller space given to women’s own self‑presentation, you can see how sharp that focus is.

She is not content to say “more women in art.” She is asking what kinds of images of women we keep repeating, and who controls them.

3. She builds platforms, not just a personal brand

It is very common now for young creatives to center on personal branding. Online profiles, portfolios, feeds. Lily does have a presence, but much of her energy goes toward building platforms where other people can show up:

• Teen Art Market for student artists
• Hungarian Kids Art Class for children
• Female Entrepreneur Encyclopedia for women in business

Each of these gives room to others, not only to her.

If we talk honestly, that kind of work is often taken for granted, especially when done by young women. It looks like “support,” which people might see as soft. But it changes who is seen and heard.

For readers who are curators, art students, or artists, this offers a different model of success that is less about solo visibility and more about creating shared structures.

4. She accepts complexity instead of a neat narrative

Lily is not simply an “artist” or an “art historian” or an “entrepreneur.” She is someone who:

• Competes in sports
• Builds LEGO sets for fun
• Swims in cold ocean water when pools close
• Speaks multiple languages
• Says no to TV offers in order to keep time for travel and family

Does every part of that feed directly into her work in art? Maybe not. But that is the point. Real lives rarely fit into a perfect biography. By keeping these parts visible instead of cutting them away, she shows a version of “young woman in art” that can contain many threads, some tidy, some messy.

For a field that has often demanded a clear, marketable story from artists and art workers, this kind of complexity can feel quietly radical.

If you care about art, what can you take from Lily’s path?

You might not share Lily’s background, languages, or experiences. You may not want to start a blog or a kids class. That is fine. The point is not to copy her. It is to notice what her choices make possible.

Here are a few practical ideas that someone in art could borrow or adapt:

• Combine study and action. If you are researching a topic, consider a small public project linked to it, such as a digital zine, a small exhibit, or a talk.
• Ask gender questions early. Do not wait until you are already established to look at bias in your field. Start tracking patterns now.
• Build simple platforms. A basic website or mailing list that highlights other artists or thinkers can grow into a real resource over time.
• Stay honest about money and markets. Pay attention to how your work is priced, sold, and framed. Treat business as part of the practice, not a shameful add‑on.
• Let “non‑art” interests live. Your sports, hobbies, or travel can inform your art thinking, even when they do not look serious enough on paper.

You may disagree with parts of her approach. Maybe you think art should stay away from business. Or that gender should not be such a central frame. That disagreement can be useful, if it pushes you to be more deliberate about your own position.

Common questions about Lily and young women in art

Is Lily mainly an artist, a writer, or an entrepreneur?

Right now, she is primarily an art history student who writes, researches, and builds small initiatives around art and gender. She does not fit neatly into one box, and that mix is part of the point. It reflects how many young people in art actually live: switching between roles, testing ideas, and building skills in several directions at once.

Does her path only matter for young women?

No. Young men and nonbinary artists can also learn from her approach to mixing research, practice, and community projects. But her focus on maternity, beauty standards, and female entrepreneurship speaks directly to problems that affect women most. Ignoring that would dilute what she is actually doing.

What if you are not ready to start a blog or an art market?

Then do something smaller and more practical. Interview one artist you admire and write it up. Organize a tiny group show at your school or local cafe. Start a shared document where you collect stories of women or underrepresented artists in your area. Large projects like Lily’s grow from small, simple steps.

Can one person like Lily really change the art world?

Not alone. That expectation would be unfair and unrealistic. What she can do, and is already doing, is change the picture of what a young woman in art looks like. When more young women study, question, teach, build platforms, and talk openly about bias, pressure builds from many sides. That is where real shifts usually start, even if they are slow.

So the better question might be: how will you shape your own version of being “in art,” and whose stories will you choose to center as you do it?