Vinita Mehra has dabbled with painting since she was in school and her hobby brought her much solace in her hectic life as a consultant.
After quitting her job to devote herself to becoming a mother, she found more time to devote to her hobby.
“At first, I started painting while I was pregnant to convert the spare room in my apartment into a baby’s room with children’s art but then I got into a zone and painted so much that I filled all the walls at home with my works. After that I started storing canvases under my bed and giving them away as presents,” says Vinita.
For many debutant-artists like Vinita, painting is a voracious hobby but they do not know what to do with their works as galleries are not interested in promoting their works and exhibiting becomes a tedious process. To their rescue has come the Internet with a number of portals and websites providing a platform for artists to exhibit and sell works. It is here that interior decorators and those looking to source affordable works of art notice talent and source artworks for those who are interested in an original work at an affordable price.
Websites like bestcollegeart.com and recently- launched fullpictureart.com are some of the portals that provide such a platform where artists can apply as sellers. Azam Khan who was looking to purchase art works for his new home says “I don’t have the kind of money to splurge on big names so I went online and found talented artists who have never exhibited and have taken the online route to meet buyers. For Rs.50,000, I was able to pick up enough works to decorate my three-bedroom home.”
Driven by the desire to make high quality Indian contemporary art more accessible, husband and wife team of Kiran and Tim Wood launched an online gallery platform Full Picture Art to bringing an international quality standard to an underdeveloped but increasingly important niche in the Indian art scene with works that are priced between $150 and $10,000.
The online art market grew by 41% last year and is now worth an estimated US$2.64bn according to a report by Hiscox in April 2015. “Online is a serious and rapidly growing art buying channel. It’s vital to the health of Indian art to grow quality representation online, giving Indian artists’ access to buyers all over the world who are increasingly confident in seeing and buying quality art in this way,” says Tim.
However, there are some who are sceptical about the growth of e-commerce in the art world and do not believe that it will go the way the retail boom has gone. Says artist Ruma Sharma, “I dont think you can really compare promoting your work in exhibitions to promoting your work online as the two are entirely different. Websites can help increase the popularity of artists but personally, they have not led to sales. However, for debut-artists, I do understand the need for the Internet along with exhibitions.
Artist Biplabi Samaddar feels the Internet is a catalyst to reach a wider audience and can bypass the gallery. He feels that through his website, he can promote the works the way he wants to and not depend on the way the gallery decides to promote. However, he feels, there needs to be a mix of the two as exhibitions are extremely important.
“There’s a huge amount of talent in the Indian contemporary art scene, and our mission is to throw open the doors to the truly great work and fantastic artists within it,” says Kiran who believes the way people buy art is on the cusp of change.
