Allahabad :
Confident brush strokes, bright colors, a creative theme and days of hard work, that’s what it takes to make a good painting. But it becomes quite disappointing to see if that piece of brilliant artwork doesn’t get the deserving appreciation. That’s precisely what most young painters have been facing for years in the city now. Exhibitions are held, paintings are put on display, but these brilliant piece of work fail to find buyers. But thanks to the advent of technology and boom in the online market, their plights seemed to have got ended. Unable to sell paintings in the local markets, these artists are resorting to social networking and online platforms to sell their stuff.
Happy with the change
Talk to the painters in the city and ask them how their lives have got changed since they started using online platforms and they answer enthusiastically. Dheeraj Yadav, a graduate from the department of Visual Arts who started marketing his paintings on facebook some times ago, adds, “The problem with this city is, people hardly buy paintings. You invite them over to your exhibition, they will come over, appreciate your work and go back. It’s not that the quality of paintings put on display is bad or the price is too high, the buying culture is just not there. Even if you price a painting as low as 1000 rupees, people rarely buy,” shares the budding painter who manages to sell a few paintings monthly using facebook these days, adding, “But now I have changed my approach. I have joined various forums on the facebook and I market my paintings there. I get to sell 3-4 paintings monthly.”
Drill these youngsters further to know more about this issue and the picture gets clearer. Dharmendra Kumar, another budding painter of the city who also resorted to online platforms recently, shares his story. “To a great extent the tag matters. More than how good a painting is, people focus on who has made it. They feel that unless a painting has been made by renowned painter, it is not worth buying, so even if they like our paintings, they would not buy it for the tag factor,” claims the youngster who recently started approaching online galleries and is getting good response from them now. “Because these online galleries are managed by professionals who have good network, they are able to arrange buyers. How they manage to sell them is something I don’t know, but in the past 3 months, I have been able to sell 7-8 paintings. Although the galleries take a 30-40% cut, given the fact they manage buyers for us, I feel it’s ok. Nothing comes for free,” adds the painter without divulging the details of the money he managed to earn from these sales.
At what price a painting gets sold is a very important factor and it seems these budding painters are quite satisfied with the returns they are getting by selling these paintings online. Adding to Dharmendra’s point, another painter Amreesh Kumar avers, “Best part of selling paintings online despite the presence of middle men is that nobody is there to haggle. You can price it as per your whims and fancies and it will be sold on your listed price. Locally that is the worst problem we face,” claims Amreesh, who managed to sell 3 of his paintings in the last couple of weeks,” adding, “Online platforms actually give us options of buyers. If somebody is unwilling to pay what we want, we can always look for other. Aaj nahi to kal bik hi jaegi and wo bhi achche rate par.”
This trend has been able to motivate these youngsters so much that a few of them are even thinking of starting their own pages and blogs. Painter Ankit Pandey, who graduated from University of Allahabad a few years ago, is one of them. “So far I was a member of a number of forums in facebook, but given the kind of response my paintings are getting, I have decided to make own page and blog. I will put some of my best paintings on display. Some of my painter friends have advised me that this will help in increasing my brand value,” claims the painter who managed to sell 4 of his paintings in the past one and half months using these platforms.
Prof Ajay Jaitley, Head of the Visual Arts department at the University of Allahabad and person in-charge of Nirala Art Gallery, one of the two most important art galleries of the city, avers, “For the past over 30 years, I have seen almost all the painters of the city. There is no dearth of talent, but painting buying culture is just not there in this city. Moreover, absence of professional galleries, which can market and give platforms to budding artists, is another reason. Visitors take these budding artists’ work lightly, so we need better marketing to improve the local market,” he says before highlighting the impact of online galleries, e-commerce sites and social networking platforms further. “On an average an artist gets to sell his painting for minimum 5000 rupees online, at least that’s something I have been told by the people selling them, so youngsters are definitely getting good returns. Although, this trend is still at a nascent stage, it has given the more exposure and bigger market. Websites like fizdi.com, Indiaart.com and indiaarthub.com, besides others, are some of the websites which youngsters are sending their works to.”
But not everyone seems to be satisfied with the response of these online platforms. There are people who have been using them for quite some time, but have not been able to get good response despite all the efforts. Shobit Yadav, post graduate student at the Visual Arts department who has neither had a very good experience uploading his paintings’ pictures on facebook, nor sending these pictures to various websites, is one of them. “I have been uploading my paintings pictures on Instagram and facebook for the past 4 months, but so far have not been able to attract even a single buyer. People send queries but so far no query has got translated into business,” he says, adding, “I even sent a few pictures to Indiaart.com but so far have not got any response. So I personally do not feel that online/social networking platforms can help too much.”
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Allahabad / by Shashank Tripathi, TNN / December 01st, 2014