The uncomfortable truth about the art market corruption

Is this painting great? No. Discover why we face the fraud of contemporary art every day.

This is an opinion piece that you may not agree with. I’m going to explain some art market money laundering and Ponzi schemes prevalent at the top art market today. I’m a realist artist myself and I see how the majority of talented artists can barely make a living, while others are killing it in the contemporary art market. The obvious question is why some artists are incredibly successful while the majority struggle. This question is not about feeling jealous or insecure, rather it’s about observing and understanding the driving force behind successful artists so you can make informed decisions whether you’re an artist or art collector.

The first answer to this question is relationships. Artists who grow their network and connect to the most influential art dealers, gallerists and curators in New York, LA, London and other top art destinations can become famous early in their career. Artists who get exhibited in art museums in New York stand a much better chance of growing their artistic career exponentially according to Magnus Resch, the author of “How to become a successful artist” book.

The second answer to this question- why some strange artists become famous- is art market collusion. In essence, art investors pose as art collectors. This category of art collectors want to make money by buying modern and contemporary art at the art fairs and top art galleries, hoping to flip the art in a few years making a considerable profit. This leads to some remarkable art market corruption schemes at the very top tier of the art market you can learn about in podcasts, art law books and some YouTube videos. (I’m going to mention some of them below.)

There is no art market regulation. Therefore it attracts many speculators to it. In this post, I’m going to discuss several most used art market corruption schemes, however there are many more I’m sure.

First, let’s look at the numbers because art seems to be a profitable business overall.

How big is the art market?

Despite billions made in revenue, the art market is a relatively small market if you look at the numbers in comparison to revenues of some blue chip companies. For instance, FedEx annual revenue for 2022 was $93.512B. Walmart generated over $572 billion in revenue in 2022. In its 2022 financial year, Apple reported 394.33 billion U.S. dollars in revenues. The global art market for 2022 was $67.8B.

• The global art market: the art market worldwide totaled $67.8 billion in 2022, growing by 3% year-over-year and reaching its second-highest level to date, according to The Art Market 2023, authored by Dr. Clare McAndrew, Founder of Arts Economics and published by Art Basel in partnership with UBS. The US was the top market, commanding 45% of global sales by value in 2022 and growing by 8% year-on-year to reach $30.2 billion! Significant growth at the high-end of the auction market, along with some growth in dealer sales, propelled the increase.
• Other art markets: The UK and China ranked second and third among global markets respectively.
• Dealer sales: art dealer sales went up 7%, reaching the pre-pandemic level of $37.2 billion. Nearly two-thirds (61%) reported an increase in sales year-on-year, and a majority (58%) even saw an improvement in values over 2019. About a quarter (24%) reported a year-on-year decline in values. The return of art fairs resulted in dealers making a growing percentage of their sales at in-person events in 2022. 
• Online-only sales: Online fell to $11 billion, dropping 17% from their 2021 peak of $13.3 billion, though still 85% higher than in 2019. Online sales represented 16% of the art market’s 2022 sales volume overall.
• Auction Houses: The strength at the top end of the art market – Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips each achieved a record high in 2022, with combined annual revenues of $17.7 billion.
• Source: https://www.artbasel.com/stories/key-findings-art-market-report-2023

Top 5 art galleries in the world:

• Larry Gagosian of Gagosian Gallery, 17 galleries worldwide! $1B in revenue
• David Zwirner of David Zwirner Gallery, 6 locations, $1B in revenue
• Manuela Hauser and Iwan Wirth of Hauser & Wirth, 10 galleries, slightly under $1B in revenue
• Marc Glimcher of Pace Gallery, 6 locations, $1B in revenue
• Jeffrey Deitch of Deitch Project, 2 locations, considerably under $1B in revenue

Data Source: Magnus Resch

Art market fraud at the top tier of the art world

Money corrupts people. That’s human nature. The top tier of the art market is all about making money, not selling or purchasing beautiful art. Because of deregulation and tax laws in the US, art has become a place to write off taxes or to store millions in overpriced works. Art dealers, curators, advisors and top mysterious clients all participate in these art flipping or art market tax evasion schemes to make money and to avoid paying taxes. Let me explain.

Ponzi scheme is a form of fraud in which belief in the success of a nonexistent enterprise is fostered by by the payment of quick returns to the first investors from money invested by later investors.

Art market fraud refers to deceptive and dishonest practices within the art industry that are intended to deceive, manipulate, or mislead buyers, sellers, collectors, investors, and other participants for financial gain. This type of fraud can encompass a wide range of illicit activities aimed at misrepresenting the authenticity, provenance, value, condition, or ownership of artworks.

#1 Charitable donations to art museums

Let’s look at the charity donations to art museums. These charitable contributions have several angles. In the first instance, while the artist gets zero in return from donating his art to a charity (only the cost of art supplies can be written off taxes as a business expense by the artist), the art collector can write off the entire price tag spent on art by donating it to an art museum or other non-profit organization. Yep, the artist gets nothing but the art collector is getting paid via a legit art donation.

In the second instance, charitable art donations can be good for artist’s brand name recognition. To advance artistic career, artists must receive validation by exhibiting their art at the top art museums in New York City. What does it mean exactly? Art must be chosen for shows by leading art curators working in New York. According to Magnus Resch, New York is the center of the art world and the “Holy Land” of art institutions and galleries. The Holy Land consists of Gagosian, Guggenheim Museum, MoMa, the Whitney Museum, Pace gallery and Houser & Wirth. A commercial gallery’s director representing work of such artists, would say that it’s a stamp of approval from professionals who choose the artist by merit. The more art museums the artist concurs, the more validation he receives, the much higher price of art follows. As a result, galleries sell very expensive art because of formal validation, not the aesthetic principles of art or the artistic genius. Art market ethics is questionable here.

This leads to art museum purchases or donations that raise the value of art. Nothing wrong with that, only many mega wealthy individuals sit on museums’ boards and pump the artist’s price up by giving the artist a show and then donating the art from their personal art collection to that museum at a much higher price. Donation is a tax write off. Nothing more and nothing less. Big money donations to the art museums are simple tax write offs. Plus you get your name written on a bench or a plaque. How exciting!

#2 How some obscure artists become famous.

Do you ever wonder how some strange art gets popular among the elite and good art remains in the shadows? Here is how you can become a famous artist participating in art market money laundering. Say, a wealthy person X must write off millions to avoid paying a big tax. So he must own an expensive painting, say a $15 million one without spending that much money on it. That wealthy person finds an underrepresented artist and buys some of his art for a few thousand dollars. But how do you make a $1k painting worth $10 million? Here is how. Such people are usually well connected and either already have or will find necessary people in the art world to realize their scheme. It means finding high end curators, appraisers and gallery owners who can decide on pricing of art. If the artist is underrepresented, they can’t justify price increase without a reason. Therefore they do something like this.

The unknown artist gets a massive marketing boost by hiring a PR firm to promote the artist’s work. These PR agencies place the artist in top publications, magazines and art influencer accounts using their connections. After a while, the artist gets a show at a high-end gallery where the right people shop for art at high prices. This process gives lots of credibility and social proof to the artist. As a result the unknown artist becomes “hot” as his artwork gets continuously promoted. The appraisers can put a high price on art from now on. At about that moment, the wealthy person X would cash in on his original investment because the art was purchased for pennies and sold for thousands. The investment is worth a million or two and can be donated to a setup charity. By spending some money on art and promotion, the artificially raised price becomes income after donation giving the investor profit not to spend it on taxes.

A variation of this business practice is when a ‘hot’ artist gets flipped a lot for higher prices in a pyramid-like scheme.

The most recent example of this Ponzi scheme is New York art advisor Lisa Schiff. She has got a lawsuit where two plaintiffs allege that she owes them $1.8 million related to the sale of a painting by famous Romanian artist Adrian Ghenie (b.1977). Ghenie is a hot artist represented by one of four top galleries-Pace. According to the Artnet news, the record for a Ghenie work sold at auction is $10.3 million for Pie Fight Interior 12 (2014), sold at Christie’s Hong Kong in May 2022. This lawsuit opened a can warms exposing Schiff’s business model of flipping art for profit for many years! In this particular case,

In 2021, Schiff told Barasch and Grossman that a Ghenie painting, Uncle 3 (2019), was available for purchase. After discussions they agreed to buy the painting. Barasch took a 50 percent share and Grossman and his spouse each acquired a 25 percent interest. No one got the art as it was shipped to a storage unit in Delaware. Source: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/art-advisor-lisa-schiff-hit-with-lawsuit-art-flipping-deal-2300709

Next year, the plaintiffs agreed to resale the art with the help of Lisa Schiff. They agreed on price of art – $2.5 million and to split the proceeds, after a commission to Schiff of $250,000. The art was sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong and the sellers received $450,000. Schiff got the commission. The rest of the money, which was $1.8 million were never wired to the sellers by Schiff, hence the lawsuit.

*Bernie Madoff, a prominent New York financier, pleaded guilty in 2009 to running a Ponzi scheme that resulted in as much as $20 billion in cash losses and $65 billion in paper losses. He was sentenced to 150 years in prison and died in April 2021 at age 82. Sam Bankman-Fried’s case is ongoing in 2023.

#3 Art purchase as a bribe and exchange for a valuable position

In this art market money laundering scheme, you usually see inflated art prices on art selling at a high-end art gallery where an “art collector” comes in and purchases art in exchange for a big favor or a valuable position within the government or other entity. The Hunter Biden case illustrates this concept perfectly. I’m not going to discuss the political views and implications here, rather I’d like to focus on the art corruption scheme itself.

In this particular case, the art gallery sold Hunter Biden’s art to some art collectors for 1.3 million dollars. According to the Insider, one art collector bought 11 artworks for $875,000 according to the Insider. Upon close investigation, the names of at least two people who were art collectors became known- Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali & Kevin Morris. Eight months later after the Hunter Biden’ solo show opening, Joe Biden-the president- put Naftali to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad.

This case illustrates how valuable positions can be sold when you can’t do a simple money transfer in exchange for it.

#4 Murky Pricing at high-end galleries

Pricing is murky. When you enter a top art gallery, you won’t see prices for art sold at the gallery. When you go to Miami Art Basel, you see very few art galleries displaying prices on walls next to paintings. There is no art market transparency. Shrouded in mystery, prices are not publicized by dealers for a reason. Price varies depending on your looks and status.

Hot artists are not sold to first-come, rich art collectors. If you just walk in wishing to buy a particular hot artist, you’d be placed on a wait list with a promise that you need to buy a “less hot” artist first. Hot artists are sold to the most known art collectors first to bump up the price further.

#5 Freeports

Freeports, also known as Free Trade Zones or Free Economic Zones, are specialized facilities that provide secure and tax-advantaged environments for the storage, trade, and exhibition of valuable assets, including art, collectibles, and luxury goods. These areas are typically located within a country’s borders but are considered to be outside its customs territory. Freeports offer various benefits, such as exemption from customs duties, taxes, and stringent regulations that would normally apply to imports and exports. In other words, the simplest way to use freeports is not to pay a sales tax on sold art by storing it in freeports, which speaks volumes of art market tax evasion.

Freeports have gained prominence as a solution for wealthy individuals, collectors, galleries, and art institutions seeking a secure and flexible space to store and manage their valuable artworks. They offer a range of services beyond simple storage, such as conservation, restoration, cataloging, and even private viewing rooms for potential buyers or patrons. These facilities are equipped with state-of-the-art security systems, climate control, and specialized expertise to ensure the preservation of delicate and valuable art pieces. The example of such facility is shown in the Tenet movie.

The primary advantage of using freeports for art storage is the ability to defer tax payments and customs duties until the items are brought back into the domestic market or are sold. This art market tax evasion feature can be particularly beneficial for collectors who acquire artworks from various parts of the world and wish to avoid immediate taxation or customs complications. It also allows for more fluid movement of art across international borders for exhibitions, auctions, and art fairs. Examples are:

1. Geneva Freeport (Switzerland): One of the most famous freeports for art storage is the Geneva Freeport. Located in Switzerland, it offers secure and climate-controlled spaces for storing high-value assets, including artworks, fine wines, and precious metals. The Geneva Freeport gained notoriety for its confidentiality and lack of transparency regarding the ownership of stored items, making it a popular choice for individuals and institutions looking to keep their collections discreet.
2. Singapore Freeport (Singapore): The Singapore Freeport is strategically positioned in Asia and serves as a hub for art storage and trading in the region. It provides specialized facilities for storing art, precious metals, and other valuable assets. The Singapore Freeport is known for its stringent security measures, advanced technology, and favorable tax policies.
3. Luxembourg Freeport (Luxembourg): The Luxembourg Freeport is another significant player in the world of art storage. It offers a range of services beyond storage, including customs clearance, art logistics, and private viewing rooms. The facility’s location within Europe makes it an attractive option for art dealers and collectors seeking a central point for their art transactions. The LUXEMBOURG HIGH SECURITY HUB is a 22,000 m2, 4-story building with beautiful architecture. The facility has 24h-security and offers storage rooms, vaults and safes of custom sizes. https://lux-hsh.com/luxembourg/

In recent years, freeports have faced criticism and increased scrutiny due to concerns about money laundering, tax evasion, and lack of transparency regarding the ownership of stored assets. Some countries have taken steps to address these issues by implementing stricter regulations and transparency measures within their freeport systems.

Sometimes you can see the depiction of freeports in movies. They show such facilities where valuable items, like art can be stored, traded, or showcased. Some movies include:

1. “No Time to Die” (2021): In the James Bond film “No Time to Die,” there is a scene set in a fictional Cuban Freeport where a valuable art collection is stored. This location plays a significant role in the plot of the movie.
2. “The Thomas Crown Affair” (1999): This remake of the 1968 film features a scene set in a freeport where the wealthy protagonist stores his art collection, including stolen pieces. The freeport becomes a focal point in the investigation of a major art heist.
3. “Rush Hour 3” (2007): In this action-comedy film, there is a sequence set in a French customs warehouse that operates as a kind of freeport. The film’s protagonists discover valuable artworks stored there as part of the plot.
4. “The Good Liar” (2019): While the film primarily revolves around a con artist and his schemes, there is a scene involving a high-security storage facility in London that serves as a freeport for valuable items.
5. “Duplicity” (2009): This movie involves corporate espionage and features a subplot that revolves around a secure storage facility where high-value products are kept. While not a traditional freeport, the concept is similar.
6. “Danny Collins” (2015): While not the main focus of the film, there is a scene set in a storage facility where valuable items, including artworks, are stored. This scene contributes to character development and plot progression.

While freeports don’t play a central role in the movies, they serve as intriguing settings for some movie scenes or plot developments. Keep in mind that movies often take creative liberties, so the portrayal of freeports in these films may not fully represent the real-world complexities and operations of such facilities but somehow illustrate the nature of art market tax evasion.

#6 Art market forgery

There are numerous art market forgery schemes. While they’re somewhat different in motivation from all the previous art market collusion schemes listed, they do exist as forged art gets produced and sold to art collectors, art museums and private companies.

Art market forgery means creating or selling artworks that are falsely attributed to a well-known artist or created to imitate a particular artistic style in order to pass them off as genuine.

Misrepresentation of Provenance means providing false or fabricated ownership histories and records of an artwork’s past ownership to inflate its value or authenticity.

#7 Art Philanthropy

What is philanthropy? The original meaning of this word gets corrupted by human nature. Philanthropy raises the person’s profile. It also looks great on paper when the philanthropist is giving money to the foundations. The only problem is that that philanthropist controls the foundation behind the scenes. If it’s an LLC, these companies make and spend money as they want. During the money transfer to the foundation they get a tax break for a charitable contribution. In reality it’s same old tax evasion. If registered as charity, philanthropists donate to both nonprofit and for profit companies with direct interest in those companies that make them money. It’s a business, not philanthropy.

#8 Price gauging at art auction houses

Price gouging at art auction houses refers to the practice of artificially inflating the prices of artworks beyond their fair market value through various means, ultimately leading to higher auction results. This can occur due to a combination of factors, including manipulation, collusion, hype generation, and unethical practices by auction houses, bidders, or intermediaries involved in the art market. While not all art auction houses engage in price gouging, instances of such behavior can undermine the transparency and integrity of the art market.

Methods of Price Gouging:

1. Shill Bidding: Auction houses might use “shills,” which are individuals posing as legitimate bidders, to drive up the bidding and create an illusion of high demand. Shill bidders artificially increase the price of an artwork, encouraging genuine bidders to offer higher bids.
2. Pre-Arranged Sales: Some artworks might be sold privately before an auction but are then presented as fresh-to-market items. This tactic can create the perception of high demand and value, leading to increased bidding during the auction.
3. Chandelier Bidding: Auctioneers might falsely claim to have received bids from the audience, inflating the price of an artwork even if no actual bids were placed. This technique encourages real bidders to compete at higher price points.
4. Limited Information: Auction houses might withhold relevant information about the artwork’s condition, provenance, or authenticity, leading to higher prices based on incomplete or misleading information.
5. Hype Generation and Marketing: Auction houses often use elaborate marketing campaigns, glossy catalog descriptions, and celebrity endorsements to generate hype around certain artworks or artists. This can create an atmosphere of excitement and exclusivity, driving up demand and subsequently inflating prices.

Price gouging can have many negative consequences for the art market that include loss of trust of collectors and investors, loss of value of art, and damaged reputation of houses, dealers, etc.

Other art market scams:

In addition to price gauging, you must be aware of Online Auction Scams. These scams involve posting fake listings on online auction platforms, often using stolen images, to deceive potential buyers into making payments for nonexistent artworks. There are also scams involving undisclosed restoration or damage. The scammers conceal the fact that an artwork has undergone restoration or repair, or downplaying the extent of damage, in order to sell it at a higher price. Some art market participants also give false appraisals. By providing inaccurate or inflated appraisals of an artwork’s value to deceive buyers or lenders for financial gain. Finally, some can forge the Certificates of Authenticity by creating counterfeit certificates of authenticity or manipulating genuine certificates to falsely authenticate an artwork. Obviously, it leads to financial losses and legal battles by the art collectors.

In conclusion

You can call me cynical or too ironic describing the art world. After all it’s a web of connected art dealers, auctioneers, appraisers, art critics, influencers and gallerists – all participating in the art market collusion. My point is that art has nothing to do with art. All of these art market money laundering schemes are real and some thrive because of legit tax code in the US. Art as an investment is for people to do just that. To put money to work. Yes, they all say that they love and enjoy looking at art. Perhaps. And so many really talented artists live and work on the sidelines of these marketing machines and have no way of receiving a” stamp of approval” to either confirm or raise the value of their art.
Until the day we have a new voting system in place where people vote after seeing new shows or recent acquisitions at the art museums, nothing would change. We will continue to be mesmerized by exuberant pricing and ugly “art” hung in institutions telling us what’s great and what’s not. They will make you believe something that’s not true. You will continue being confused about what you’re seeing, saying to yourself that you don’t understand art.

The sad part is that the average Joe and Jane pay their taxes to support the government spending while wealthy people who can really contribute to the well-being of our society avoid doing just that.

If you’re an artist and want to take part in this marketing machine, now you know what to do. You can try getting into the shows at the art museums in New York or connect to a powerful player in the artworld who would promote your art.

As a side note, you can read about various cases and corruption schemes in this book. It’s a great read to understand other art-related issues as well. Art Law in a Nutshell, 6th Edition https://amzn.to/3Ds3SmJ Art Law in a Nutshell presents an overview of the legal issues concerning art. It covers the definition of art, and the theft and movement of art in wartime and peacetime. It examines the business of art for artists, dealers, museums, and collectors, including art as an investment, auctions, authentication, insurance, tax issues for artists and collectors, working artist issues, and aid to the arts. It also explains the intellectual property issues of copyright, trademark, moral rights and economic rights, right of publicity, and First Amendment freedom of expression rights. The latest introduction was written by a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judge who actually wrote at least one of the opinions discussed in the book.

SHOP visionary art for sale now!

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Why Do Artists Create Art? Online Group Exhibition

I’d like to thank all the artists who entered this competition and all the sponsors who support the artists. Please visit the sponsors via the links shown below.

Written by Veronica Winters, MFA | Edited by Vladislav Fomitchev

You might think that artists create art for a variety of reasons. We find an outlet to communicate our ideas, to express our emotions, to capture a moment in time, to tell a story, or to bring inspiration and joy into people’s lives. Some artists create art to make money, while most artists produce art to express their soul and talent because they feel a pure need to create.

Learning to express ourselves visually is a need. Without having this deep drive to create the artist may remain just a skilled illustrator or a good craftsman. Many artists experience the urgency to paint especially when they’re deprived of it for quite some time.
Most artists feel the need to paint because doing art is freeing. It fixes our inner yearning and heals our pain. Artists often paint to fill a void inside them because creatives process emotions visually. To develop a unique visual language, every artist must do a deep dive inside his soul to understand his Why. Why do you create what you create? What does it accomplish? What do you want others to see in your artwork? These are the questions that are always there for the creatives to think about. After all, that’s how the artist discovers his purpose and meaning as well as the meaning behind his own creations. 

Artists enjoy the process of creation so much that they commit to spending years learning the craft. It’s often not enough to have a 4-year college degree to master the skill and develop a unique vision. But because artists can’t live without art just like you can’t live without your heart, they are driven to produce art.
Many artists create art in progression of skill and personal growth. Artists keep painting, sculpting, and writing to make this world less dark and more beautiful. As art brings beauty home, artists paint emotions, not subjects or objects. And that’s the reason why you can really fall in love with a piece. You connect to it emotionally.
Since the 19th century, artists have gained freedom to create personal art that was very different from expected religious scenes, formal portraiture, and mythological illustrations. Stepping away from widely accepted academic painting, many new art styles have emerged since. Art Nouveau, Impressionism, Cubism, abstraction, surrealism, art installation, photography, new media and so many more!

The freedom of artistic voice is almost always affected by external culture. Why do we look at human history through ancient objects, architecture and painting? Early excavations, Renaissance masters, modern art… Art is never created in a void. Yes, it expresses emotion but it also comments on fashion, culture, events or political divisions in society. Sometimes it becomes a propaganda tool to express the political and economic glory of a nation.

Art is a visual language that’s often taken for granted because it’s all around us. However, if you remove every picture, poster, cover, book, sculpture, movie, cartoon, song just for one day you’ll experience a profound lack of beauty, thought, and inspiration. Art is a mirror for your soul. It’s a place to see your true self. It’s a depiction of feelings we often hide, suppress, or don’t even think about.

How long did it take you to paint this?
All artists get one question they may or may not find exciting. Viewers often try to start a conversation with this question. Artists either try to calculate the hours spent painting the art or get upset by the very nature of this question because the number of hours may not reflect all the unseen work, and sweat spent in the trenches learning the craft.
Don’t ask the artist how long he painted the art, ask him why he painted it. A lot of creatives need to process this question in their mind and heart themselves! This is the most fascinating part about creation. Artists produce something beautiful out of “nothing.” Understanding that space is peeking into the artist’s heart and mind. When I look at someone’s art, I also see how deep the artist travels inside himself. If there is exploration of feelings, social themes or intelligence. Painting is simply a journey into the artist’s soul. It’s an invitation to look into yourself without saying a word and to make personal discoveries. This in turn enriches our soul giving more meaning to what we do in our work.

When you see great art in a museum, you want to come back to it to experience it again, to find something exciting in it. The same painting can give you a different meaning, feeling, or story. It can make you look at life a bit differently. It can make you laugh or cry but it can’t leave you indifferent. While the curation of our taste in art comes from our knowledge and understanding of art history, art collecting should be about emotion, aesthetics, and the joy of appreciating beautiful work. By bringing art home you fill the need for beauty and emotion but you also make a difference in an artist’s life. You give the artists more reasons to create art and develop their vision and skill.

While there’s a lot of speculation at the top tier of the art market, most artists produce art to say something personal as opposed to making a quick buck. While top art collectors purchase art as an investment, most artists feel their art is getting devalued by daily offers of free work for ’’exposure’’ or with why-is-it-so-expensive questions. Even though they need it to continue painting, artists often search for meaning and beauty, not money. The dream of every artist is to keep creating and get paid for all their unseen work that can’t be measured in standard terms… To make a living, yes, but an artist’s real dream is to create art that touches your soul or makes a positive change in your life.

Nicole Finger

Award: Gift Certificate from Jerry’s Artarama

Making art has always been my most natural mode of expression. Creating something with my hands, eyes and mind always could be more highly curated than letting thoughts spill out of my mouth! I create because it has become habitual, meditative and satisfying. Harnessing creativity in both the process and end product is purely selfish; it fulfills a sense of productivity and feels like a daily hit of serotonin!

Barb Sotiropoulos

Award: digital subscription to the Colored Pencil Magazine

 I have never known a time in my life when I wasn’t creating art in some way. There were seasons when I was able to create more abundantly than others, but I have always been driven to do something creative. In the times that I wasn’t creating as much art something always felt off or unnatural. I believe that artists are creative to their core and that when we aren’t making art our spirits often feel out of alignment. I endeavor to explore the themes and stories that I see in my head through my artwork. Often when these stories and themes find me they will haunt me until I create them. It’s almost as if they need to be born into the world somehow. As artists, I believe we are the conduits to make that happen. I create for myself, my spirit and to hopefully connect with others by experiencing the work I create. 

Ali Rouse

Award: Gift Certificate from Jerry’s Artarama

I create as I don’t know how to exist without creating. It is as breathing. Beauty is creation and creations surrounds us everywhere.

Nancy Jacey

Award: Gift Certificate from Jerry’s Artarama

Every day I wake up inspired by the world around us: the colors, details and elements that make up our surroundings. I am fascinated by life’s details, and I like to reflect this in my everyday life and in my career as an artist. I constantly study and photograph the world around us and use these references and experiences in my artwork and in my teaching.

I like to vividly capture these personal interactions and bring them to life for my audience in large-scale oil, acrylic and colored pencil paintings. I work as a full-time artist, mother, small business owner and private art instructor. 

Kimberly Raboin

Award: digital subscription to the Colored Pencil Magazine

I create art because I want to capture the beauty of the natural world and also communicate inner experiences and emotions. Recently I’ve been practicing realism with colored pencil and my subject matter has been landscapes. In my landscape work I’ve tried to capture the beauty of places I’ve visited, and also the feelings I experienced while there. My hope is that my recent landscapes convey a sense of vastness and serenity.

My most recent colored pencil drawing ‘Wings of Renewal’ combines my love of landscapes with symbolism. The butterfly in this piece is a symbol of transformation and change. I hope to create more work that combines realism and symbolism.

Dean Rogers

Award: digital subscription to Create! Magazine

This piece represents the culmination of a lifetime of work. The books in the background are the inspiration for an incredible amount of artwork, as well as the series I’ve been creating for the last 5 years.

This series, “Fantasy Meets Reality” is about fantasy creatures who have crossed over into our world. I wanted to create a scene involving a fairy, and I couldn’t think of a better modern fairy pastime than reading relatively recent fantasy novels.

She is using a cell phone like a computer, and she is asking her friends if they would like to go see the movie “Enchanted” which directly inspired me to create this series.

Denise Howard

Gift Certificate from Jerry’s Artarama

I create for many reasons, but perhaps the most important one, and the one behind “Faith’s End,” is that I want people to stop and think, and come away with more than “that’s a pretty picture”.

Visual art has a power where words sometimes fail. Rather than hit the viewer over the head with an obvious message, which they might reject outright, I want them to use their imagination a bit to figure out what’s going on in the picture, what it means to them, and how it makes them feel. If it resonates with them, so much the better. I’ve spent a lot of years developing my skills, so I’d be lazy if I only used them for easily forgotten “pretty pictures”.

Kerry Simmons

Award: $100 Gift Certificate from Ampersand

I find joy and satisfaction in the act of creating. I see every new sheet of paper, or canvas as an opportunity to create something new, bring something into existence that is both my point of view and inspired by the work of other artists and the world around me. When I am painting or drawing I am able to let go of my worries and fears and just be in the moment. I’ve noticed time even operates at a different pace. If I’m thoroughly engrossed in what I am creating, time just whips by. I think for me, being able to create art has been an enormous gift, joy and comfort. One could also say it’s simply a compulsion as I can’t imagine life without it!

Dorian Vallejo

Award: digital subscription to Create! Magazine

This drawing is from a small sketchbook which I used to work from life in the warmer months. Working this way puts me in direct contact with a poetry of life that informs all the work I do. This practice sensitizes me to the beauty nature offers us on a regular basis. Most importantly, it also informs me of how that beauty can be used as a metaphor for the Good.  

Ranjini Venkatachari

Award: digital subscription to Create! Magazine

When I discovered the art of Origami and how I can incorporate it in my Trompe-l’oeil still life, my work took a different trajectory. My usual collectors stopped buying my art because I didn’t make pretty still life’s using flowers or fruits anymore. I was discouraged, disappointed, I stopped drawing for a while too. But then I realized I stopped living as well. I was procrastinating, didn’t want to move out of my comfort zone I realized I stopped growing, that’s when I came across the concept of Dharma & Ikigai.

Dharma, is an ancient Sanskrit word that roughly translates to a soul’s purpose in life-the big reason why we are here, and it’s not just what we do, but how we do it, and why we do it.  Ikigai is a similar Japanese concept on giving a person purpose life and living. I decided to draw for myself and that completely changed the way I looked at my own work. For me, art is the only reason to get out of my bed each morning and look forward to the rest of my life. I guess that’s how it is for the most of us artists, it’s our primal instinct without which we cannot survive. So I create in order to live my life to the fullest with a purpose. 

Traci Wright Martin

Award: digital subscription to the Colored Pencil Magazine

In all my years as an artist, I have spent the most time in an evolving exploration of the portrait. I am fascinated by people and their complex individuality. I marvel at the ability to build strong community by way of the smallest thread of commonality. It is my hope that each and every viewer finds a little point of connection or sees themselves somewhere in my work.

With these ideas in mind, the overall narrative in each series I create weaves in and out of a conversation on perspective and representation. Combined with charcoal drawing as the anchor, I carefully select colorful pastels, patterned papers, and paint techniques to further the themes and create a recognizable, unique identity for my body of work.

Dr. Carla René

Award: digital subscription to Color Crush Course

Long before “realism” was a genre in art, I described my artist self as “an arm with a camera on the end of it”. As a child, I was fascinated that the artist could possess the skill that would mimic the accuracy of a photograph so no one could tell the difference.
Now as an adult, an astrophysicist, and mathematician, the laws of physics show this mysterious symbiotic relationship is possible, so I strive to prove this on a personal level through every piece I produce. I have also developed an original technique using only standard CPs that emulates watercolors, since my attempt to learn them was disastrous. As my confidence grows, I’m able to explore my love of physics by experimenting with chemically-diverse tools. I AM a woman in STEM, and proud. I want to encourage others to find the joy of science, tech, engineering & math as I did.

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Miami swells with art and artsy crowds during the first week of December every year ( with no fairs in 2020). There are several top art fairs happening in the city that bring the art lovers and professionals from all over the world. Art Fairs include the Art Basel, Scope, Miami red dot/ Spectrum, Context art Miami and some more! In addition, some hotels organize art events during this time too to draw people in. The fairs are spread out in the Miami Beach but the locations stay the same year after year.

Miami Art Context 2021

I visited Context Art Miami during the opening hours in early December thanks to my friend Florencia. It felt like a big celebration of the arts. There were so many visitors, artists, gallerists, curators, art collectors, museum professionals and yes, celebrities visiting the fair, it almost felt crazy to experience so much energy in one place. While not every art piece was great, I loved to look at variety of contemporary art, pushing the boundaries of what art could be. I enjoyed seeing boldness and innovation, creativity, the use of textures and materials, and 3D-art.

😃 As long as artists create on this planet, we won’t be consumed by the existing darkness on Earth.💕

This is a short video shot with my phone where I tried to capture realist art as well as some innovative pieces. Some of the artists shown are: Carole Feuerman (hyperrealist sculptures), Anthony James (light sculptures), Coderch & Malavia sculptures, David Uessem, Damien Hirst, Marco Grassi and so on.

As far as I know the rules of participation for the galleries have been relaxed somewhat, which used to include the following: The gallery must have a physical location. It must be in business for over 3 years. And it must pay a hefty fee. Depending on the size of the booth, the cost of gallery participation amounts to $20,000-50,000 (Context Miami. I’m pretty sure that Art Basel is even more expensive to participate in). This doesn’t include, airfare, hotel, meals and staff salary. So you can imagine that the art shown at Art Basel reflects this pricing and not every gallery sells out… Galleries are on the hunt for top collectors, institutions and celebrities buying art from them. While there were fewer visitors than in the previous year, sales were robust according to Artsy.

Spectrum Miami review

Finally I want to mention another popular art fair- SPECTRUM Miami located in Wynwood. I mainly want to record my opinion here, so if you plan to exhibit at this fair, it might not be what you think it is, or perhaps it’s a lot more than you thought of it in the first place. I’m going to compare it to Context Miami fair. So Spectrum is all about emerging artists taking charge of their careers and exhibiting there, not the galleries working on their behalf. The space and lighting isn’t top notch. The crowd coming to the show is very different. Young, excited to go out and celebrate. My question was if there were any art collectors there at all. My guess, there were few. Of course, the cost of renting a booth is much cheaper just as the price of an entry ticket in comparison to the Context. Finally the quality of art is very different from the Context, showing young artists with most being Florida-based…Perhaps there is a lot more to the Spectrum but these are valid points to consider either visiting or exhibiting in this art fair.

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