Is there a market for this art? : Gallery vist from a baffled punter

I held a retrospective exhibition of my artworks as part of the village of Terenure’s Culture Night show. It ran until Sunday morning and it was wonderful to participate in an event in my own locality.

I met lots of lovely new people along with many of my old friends and art class students. I showed work from much of my career, including several illustrations taken from my collection of Irish Times illustrations (I had a run of about 10 years doing illustration work for the Business This Week and Education sections).

The title of this post refers to a gentleman who visited on Sunday morning. I handed a catalogue to him as he walked in and he had a good look around. On the way out he asked me, “Is there a market for this?”

I don’t know the answer to that question, to be honest and I’ve never thought much about ‘markets’ either. I told him that and he went away. I’m afraid that I didn’t have the presence of mind to give him the proper answer: Yes of course. There’s a market amongst discerning people.

Mind you, that was better than on another occasion some years ago when a punter enquired about the price of a painting on show. When I gave the price, the punter replied, “Oh I don’t want the frame -just the painting”. I was to understand that the frame was the expensive part of the deal. Just like in the framing department of IKEA.

Isn’t art at its best when it makes you think a little? If it’s just paintings of flowers or charming country scenes, perfect reworkings of photographs – or even the relentless uniformity of ‘grid’ paintings then it seldom rises above the level of decoration. For me at least.

Kevin

You can see what was on show in the gallery below.