I remember sitting in a drafty corner of a municipal museum in the late nineties, watching a young painter stare at a blank wall with a look of pure, unadulterated heartbreak. She had just been told her work was “too commercial” for a public collection, which is a polite, institutional way of saying they had […]
I remember sitting in my gallery back in 2004, nursing a lukewarm Earl Grey and watching a young painter walk in with a contract that looked more like a mortgage than a partnership. He was beaming, convinced he’d finally “made it” because a prestigious-sounding entity wanted to represent him, completely oblivious to the fact that […]
I remember sitting in my gallery back in the late nineties, watching a young painter look absolutely shell-shocked after being told by a “consultant” that he needed to pay a five-thousand-pound exhibition fee just to get his work on the walls. He thought he was buying prestige, but he was actually just paying for someone […]
I remember sitting in my back office back in 2014, nursing a lukewarm gin and tonic while an artist I’d championed for a decade sat across from me, vibrating with a mixture of guilt and fury. She wanted out, but she was terrified that walking away would turn her into a pariah—or worse, that she’d […]
I remember sitting in my back office in 2004, staring at a ledger and realizing that a young painter in my stable had just sold a piece for three thousand pounds, yet she was still struggling to pay her studio rent. She looked at me with such wide-eyed, naive trust, never once questioning the mechanics […]
I remember sitting in my back office in 2008, staring at a mountain of invoices and a very frustrated painter who felt I was “stealing” from him. He had just sold a large-scale oil on canvas for three thousand pounds, and seeing my commission check felt like a personal affront to his soul. He didn’t […]
I remember sitting on a rickety stool in a drafty warehouse in East London, clutching a lukewarm espresso and watching a young painter sweat through his shirt because he thought he had to perform a choreographed dance of “artistic mystery.” He was so busy trying to sound profound that he completely missed the fact that […]
I remember sitting in my gallery back in the late nineties, nursing a lukewarm espresso and staring at a folder a young painter had practically shoved under my nose. It was a chaotic, heartbreaking mess of half-finished studies, blurry photographs of canvases leaning against studio walls, and more “process” than any serious collector would ever […]
I remember sitting in my small market town gallery, clutching a lukewarm glass of Chardonnay, staring at a portfolio from a young painter who had “the look” but absolutely no sense of how to actually exist in a room. Everyone tells you that there’s some mystical, divine spark that triggers a gallerist’s interest, or that […]
I remember sitting in my small market town gallery back in ’98, nursing a lukewarm Earl Grey and staring at a stack of unsolicited portfolios that looked more like ransom notes than professional submissions. One young painter, quite talented but utterly lost, had practically burst through my door, demanding to know why I wasn’t “discovering” […]