The Art market is jealous.



I received this from an Artist,“I approached new galleries they said immediately which is your style? We only take Artists who paint in the same style so that customers recognize who painted the paintings.”

I understand why the gallery takes that position because if they could just sell the same painting over and over again they would. They find a painting that sells and they want to keep selling it, they are in business and they sell paintings to make money.
There are many artists out there that get big prices for constantly reproducing the same paintings, that is factory art, reproducing the same painting in various versions to please a certain market. Now that is fine but it is not Art, it is factory painting, doing the same painting over and over in the same similar style because it sells.
That is ok, if selling paintings as merchandise is what you are all about.
Realise that the art market does not say what is good or bad art, only history will reveal that.
The art market only says what it can sell and that is all it is interested in, it is not interested in great art, it is interested in selling art. I wish Artists could understand that, selling is wonderful but at the expense of your creativity seems to me to be counter productive. I know painters who have slavishly reproduced the same or similar paintings for years with little alteration in style or similarity and it is just for the market and if it sells the market will demand more and more, but at some point it stops being Art and becomes mechanical, factory art, every painting guaranteed to be the same and sell, but it is no longer art, its merchandise.
Picasso never listened to the galleries or the market he painted Picasso, and because he painted Picasso he went in the Artistic direction that his creativity led him, that I believe is why he was so great.
Imagine if he had stayed painting the blue period all his career because it sold, then history would have forgotten him like it does so many factory painters.
Am I saying to ignore selling, not at all, sell all you can but do not allow the sale to dictate to you what you should paint.
The Art market is jealous and selfish and wants its own way and if the Artists succumb to that pressure then their Art will change as the pressure to produce to satisfy the market changes them from an Artist to a painter producing factory art.
Beware of the trap of popularity, because if you really are an Artist then your Artistic integrity will be more important to you than the jealous fickle art market, selling our Art is our objective of course and being the captain of our destiny also, but we decide what we paint not the market.
Great Artists continue to evolve and as they grow and mature personally so their work grows and matures, changes and evolves over the years.






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