I remember sitting in the back of a crowded, overheated studio opening in the late nineties, watching a young painter try to explain away his blatant theft of a contemporary master’s color palette as “a dialogue with the lineage of the medium.” It was nonsense, of course. He wasn’t in a dialogue; he was just […]
Stop waiting for a lightning bolt of divine inspiration to strike your studio floor; it’s a romanticized lie that keeps talented people broke and staring at blank canvases. I spent twenty-six years watching artists agonize over the “sacred mystery” of how artists find their subject, as if they were waiting for a sign from the […]
I remember sitting in my back office in 2004, staring at a stack of canvases from a young painter who had just spent three years chasing every passing trend like a frantic magpie. He thought he was being “versatile,” but to me, he just looked like he didn’t know who he was. There is this […]
I remember sitting in the back of a dusty studio in 1994, watching a young painter spend four thousand pounds on heavy-bodied oils and Belgian linen, only to realize his composition was fundamentally broken because he’d neglected the charcoal stage. We are constantly sold this lie that “art” begins with the expensive materials—the thick impasto, […]
I remember sitting in a drafty backroom of a London gallery in the late nineties, watching a collector stare at a large-scale gelatin silver print with the same skeptical squint one might reserve for a confusing tax return. He wasn’t looking at the composition or the light; he was looking for the brushstrokes. For decades, […]
I remember sitting in a dusty studio in Cornwall back in ’94, watching a sculptor stare at a bill from a bronze foundry that was nearly triple what he’d budgeted for the materials alone. He looked at me like I was the enemy for asking why the numbers were so high, but the truth was […]
I remember a young painter, lovely girl, who came into my gallery ten years ago with a stack of beautiful lithographs and a look of absolute terror. She had been told by a “consultant” that her numbering system needed to be some esoteric, complex code to signify prestige. In reality, she was just making it […]
I remember sitting in the back of a crowded studio in the late nineties, watching a young artist try to explain his “limited edition” series to a very confused, very wealthy local collector. He was using all the right academic jargon, but the moment he stumbled over the technical distinction between a lithograph and a […]
I remember sitting in my gallery back in 2012, watching a young artist try to explain a three-minute loop to a collector who just wanted to know if he could hang it above his sideboard. The collector looked baffled, the artist looked defensive, and I sat there realizing that the traditional rules of “objecthood” were […]
I remember sitting in the back of a drafty studio in 1998, watching a young man spend three thousand pounds on a high-definition video setup for a piece that lasted exactly twelve minutes. He thought the expensive lens would somehow capture the “soul” of the movement, but all he actually captured was a very pricey, […]