Credit Crunch and the impact on the Art market

So we are in this credit crunch thing right. Its not great, not enough money to go round, people are loosing their jobs in their hundreds and thousands. its terrible.
So hows the art market holding up in all this turmoil? Well, I read some reports a couple of months ago which seemed to be suggesting the art market was doing fine. Actually it stated that the market was up! How can this be? I thought...so i did some research, and this is what i found.

Are people still buying artwork?
Yes. More people are buying artwork than ever before. BUT specifically they are buying artwork from unknown or junior artists and they are sometimes called. The kind of thing that costs between £50-5000. They are also buying established classics too, which fetch a much higher sum. This is where the serious investors are. But even the amateur can pick something up for a modest sum from an unknown artist and get something tangible which is likely only to go up in value over the next few years.

Why?
There seem to be several reasons why.

1. Investors over the last decade have focused on getting a return on their investment. They still want that in today's situation, but more importantly they don't want to loose their investment. If you take a look at the stock market you can see its just going down all the time, and is extremely risky. If a company looses value they loose some of their investment, but worse, if the company collapses altogether then they loose everything. As a result investors want to put their money in less risky, more tangible assets. Some are putting their money in gold bullion, and other such assets, and interestingly in artwork!
2. People are having a hard time and this brings about strange behaviour. An example, did you know that the pregnancy rate has shot up? Its unexpected, you would have though people have less money, but people are looking more at entertainment and trying to give themselves a pick up. People are buying artwork to help cheer themselves up!
3. Discounts -artists are discounting their work, they need to make a living too. Its the same as Marks and Spencers doing a 20% sale today, out of the blue. The price of goods is coming down and this includes artwork too. Which is good for buyers, looking for a bargain!

What does the future hold?
Its hard to be sure, who knows how bad the impact of the credit crunch will get, but what is clear is that people are buying artwork at the moment. My feeling is that the sale of artwork will continue unabated.

Lets look back in a year and see what happened.



Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.
Check out http://www.buygalleryart.com/

New Artists on www.buygalleryart.com - Faith Puleston

Faith Puleston was born in North Wales and studied music and languages at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where she gained her Recital Diploma in singing. After excursions into musical (including a tour of South Africa and a spell at the Royel Theatre, Drury Lane in the musical"Camelot") Faith went to Germany to study German where it is spoken and to seek an opera engagement singing dramatic parts, especially those in Wagner, R. Strauss and Verdi operas. This led her to the State Theatre Saarbruecken and later to a long engagement at the Opera in Duesseldorf. Throughout her long stage career Faith made appearances in many European opera houses, sang over 100 operatic roles and also sang in oratorio and gave recitals. Following the birth of her second child and the ultimate breakdown of her marriage, Faith was destined to devote more time to her children and from then on could only accept guest performances. At that time she started writing fiction and teaching voice. Later she taught voice for 6 years at Dortmund University until tempting opera engagements lured her back into the theatre. In the early nineties Faith also took up choral conducting and still invests considerable time and energy into directing her choruses and writing all the arrangements for them. She is a freelance writer and her work in this sector has led to contracts with a German school book publisher. Faith took up painting seriously eight years ago and has studied intensively since then. She hopes to devote even more time to her painting activities in the future.

Take a look at here work here: http://www.buygalleryart.com/Gallery_Faith.html

New Artist at BuyGalleryArt.com - Olga Dmytrenko

Olga Dmytrenko

Olga Dmytrenko was born in the Ukraine. Her love of the visual arts and science was cultivated at a young age – Olga’s father used to paint in a realistic style, and her mother, a mathematician, gave her passion for science. After graduating from the Republican School of Physics and Mathematics at Kiev State University, she entered the Department of Physics there, and got her M.Sc. in 1986. In 1990 she gained a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry. Dr. Dmytrenko has won several honour rewards, including Research Fellowship of President of Ukraine and Fellowship of Republic of Austria Federal Ministry of Science and Research. She currently lives and works as a scientist in Delaware, USA. Despite her deep interest in science, Olga creates organic abstracts, mainly in acrylic and metallic paints. Most of her paintings are done with soft colors and rich gold. Some of them depict suggestions of clouds, water, and people, but often Olga’s works gear towards fantasy themes, and almost all of her artworks contain a sort of mythical quality.

Check it out on http://www.buygalleryart.com/index.html

Roberto Sebastian Antonio Matta

This guy has to be one the most talented artists in the last hundred years, he is semi known, appearing in books on surrealism alongside artists like Salvador Dali. But not as popular as Dali.

At the start of the second world war, Matta, like many surrealist artists of the time, retreated to New York, a safe haven for artists at the time. Unlike many artists of the surrealist movement, he did not work through the cubism style, or Dada.

...Dada I don't like that much, but what it did do was give freedom to art, breaking the chains of art tradition - but this is a post for another time. Lets get back on track...

He worked with great speed and concentration, his speed was vital to his style, certainly I paint in the same way, and it forces your mind to be inventive, making quick impulsive, and therefore original and creative decisions.

Painting top right is entitled "Situation Vert".

Matta liked layers, he would often scratch through the top layer of paint to reveal the level of paint below. See the picture to the right entitled "Labirintad".

Unlike some surrealists who painted an odd version of something obviously real, such as Dali's melting clocks, Matta instead painted emotion, deep parts of his mind, and suggestions of things. Colourful, and deep, his paintings were visual masterpieces, in his own truly unique style.

Matta was influenced by many other surrealist artists, the picture below shows Matta and Max Ernst at an exhibition. Not many people that I meet, know who Matta is, although most I find do like his work. I would be interested to hear your comments so please do feel free to let me know.

If you like this kind of work, then check mine out on my website: http:\\www.BuyGalleryArt.com

another cool blog which is worth a look.

Check this blog out, this guy has some pretty cool stuff on his blog and i hope once ive been doing this a while i can have something this profesional looking.
http://maxmagnusnorman.com/artist_blog/

Check back later, i will be adding a post about the ground breaking Chilean artist Roberto Matta
(born 11/11/11, died 11/23/2002) my favoriate artist.

Impressionist style

So what is 'Impressionist' painting.

This art movement took form in the late 19th Century, and is widely considered to be started in Paris, by Claude Monet, who painted 'Impression Sunrise'.

At the time these artists were heavily critizied for their work, because at the time it was quite revolutionary. They painted what they saw, but not in a photographic sense, but rather the overall visual outcome of looking at something. Using bolder colours, and larger, textured brush strokes...the style looked rather lazy. When i was a kid, i didnt think much of it, and have only in my adult life realised the point of it.

The other scene from Paris that I remember seeing only last week in this style, was Renoir's painting of the paris street, bustling with life. This painting, and the style used, is often painted by students studying the impressionist style.

The point was not to copy the scene before them but rather the impression, emotion and movement that scene implied.

Perhaps the most famous impressionist , who came slightly later was Van Gogh. Certainly the art world loves him but im still not a fan.

What Buy Gallery Art is all about

So now that my site is linked into search engines a little better, thanks to this blog, I want to start making good use of this blog and give readers a little more value. I want this blog to be the place for art lovers to go if they want to know whats going on in the global art world. I will of course keep you updated regarding buygalleryart.com as well.





I will be dedicating more time to this as of next week, and posts will occur about twice a week. So the articles will be edited, rather than typed on the fly, and i will create a decent template too.


For today though, the big news is this:


Some historian guy from Italy says he has found the grave of the woman from Leonardo Da Vinci's famous Mona Lisa painting. You know the one, its quite popular, although i personally dont think its his best work. Lets get back on track...Apparently records say she died in 1542 at the ripe old age of 63, and was burried in a convent in Florence.

Whats her last name i hear you cry! Is it Smiley as the painting suggests in my mind?


No, it was Gherardini, as in Lisa Gherardini.

According to the reasearch of this historian (and i should note his name is Mr Pallanti) she dies a widdow and was ill when she died. The whole parrish turned out for her funeral, which must mean she was popular. Now i know that Leonardo worked for many well of families and did all kinds of creative things. He was a genius after all. So i woudlnt be surprised if he painted this for her, or her familiy, because she was well off, and famous already. I dont think the painting made her famous at the time.



As for why she was smiling, everyone has there own views, one of my friends from art college certainly did, but this is too rude to share. Personally i think she was smilling because she was having her portrait painted. I mean thats what you do isnt it under such circumstances.



Thanks for reading.

Please checkout www.buygalleryart.com to view some art, and maybe buy some. Or sell your own.