I remember a landscape oil, 60cm x 80cm, 1994. It was a stunning piece by a young man I represented early on, but by the time I saw it again five years later, the surface was a topographical map of cracks and yellowed varnish. He had used student-grade oils and a canvas that was more […]
I remember sitting in the back of a crowded, stuffy studio in the late nineties, listening to a young painter explain how his “spiritual energy” dictated where he placed his focal points. It was nonsense, of course. He had all the passion in the world, but his canvas was a chaotic mess that no serious […]
I remember standing in the corner of a drafty, repurposed warehouse during a London graduate exhibition in the late nineties, nursing a lukewarm glass of cheap Prosecco and watching a collector squint at a series of charcoal drawings. He wasn’t looking at the technique; he was looking for a sign—some sort of institutional stamp of […]
I remember walking into a young painter’s studio back in the late nineties—oil on canvas, 120cm x 150cm, 1998—and being hit by a smell so thick and chemical I nearly turned back toward the street. He was sitting there, eyes watering, working in a room with the windows shut tight because he thought “artistic temperament” […]
Stop listening to the glossy, white-walled whispers that suggest you need a six-figure windfall and a membership to a private club just to own something meaningful. There is a pervasive, exhausting myth that art collecting is a game played exclusively by people with more money than sense, and frankly, it’s a lie designed to keep […]
I remember standing in the middle of a drafty warehouse in 2008, surrounded by thirty uncratered canvases and a mounting pile of invoices that made my stomach do slow, sickening flips. Everyone tells you that preparing a large scale art exhibition is about the grandeur of the vision or the emotional weight of the work, […]
People will tell you that the art of hunting for classic comic books is about finding that one “holy grail” issue in a dusty basement, as if it’s some grand, romantic scavenger hunt. They want you to believe it’s about luck or a divine connection to the medium. It isn’t. In my twenty-six years of […]
I remember sitting in the back office of my gallery in 1994, staring at a stunning 19th-century daguerreotype that had been handed to me by a client who thought a velvet-lined wooden box was a substitute for actual climate control. The silver was flaking, the image was ghosting, and the sheer negligence of it made […]
I remember standing in the backroom of my gallery in 2004, looking at a series of stunning, high-priced oils, only to realize the artist had let their pigments turn into a crusty, unusable mess because they treated their supplies like an afterthought. There is this pervasive, romanticized myth that “true artists” live in a state […]
Stop treating color theory like it’s some sacred, mystical ritual that only happens in a high-end studio with expensive pigment sets. I spent twenty-six years watching artists approach their palettes with a sort of reverent hesitation, as if picking the wrong shade of ochre would somehow offend the gods of fine art. It’s nonsense. In […]