Christine: In 2004, just before I was going to give birth as a single mother, my father offered me a space to start up. He knew I had a dream of opening an art gallery and the opportunity arose at that time. The gallery name was ‘Artitude’ then. I must say, I was very unprepared – I knew much about art through my art studies but I knew nothing about running a business, especially an art business.
When I just focused on a variety and more on commercial work, that’s when success hit. This is quite challenging for me as the art I love is not what I display most of the time. As long as I exhibit what is of good quality and value, I feel I am at least providing my clients with what they deserve.
Christine: At first, I go for artists whose works I feel may fill in the gap in the market, with reasonable pricing and most importantly, of good quality. Eventually, I look at our working relationship. Artists I enjoy working with are constantly busy working on bettering their work and interested in knowing how customers are reacting to their work. I try very hard to sell their work and I appreciate an artist’s loyalty.
My top selling artists are those who work hard at their painting and those who leave the rest to me. When I suspect artists using me to better their image and obtaining customers and then going behind my back, I realise they are not forward lookers – not what I need. The main artists I work with now I am happy with, as we have a good relationship. They give me what I need, I sell for them and they are happy. Any serious artist prefers to focus on their work rather than deal with sales.
Christine: Abstraction and abstracted Maltese landscapes are what have worked best at the gallery. I do sell other works, like figurative paintings, but abstracts and abstracted landscapes sell the best. I believe it is changing over the years but people need to see new works for a while before they come to appreciate them.
Christine: I keep tabs on what local art buyers are after by what they ask for and by what I see at exhibitions. I do look at works by upcoming artists and sometimes, I try out new artworks to see how they respond to it. I have also started sending out artist calls for artworks I feel I need and setting up exhibitions. For example, recently I felt the need for smaller artworks which can also be more affordable as gifts so I made the artist call for ’20×20′ art on paper.
Learn more and keep in touch with Christine X Art Gallery on ARTZ ID.
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