Danielle Burch is a graduate completing her MFA degree at The School of Art, College of Imaging Arts & Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, USA. This current semester, Danielle is one of 9 graduate students in artist Alan Singer’s Business Practices For Fine Artists class.

Alan Singer recently asked–

“Hello Marie,

In your marketing materials research do you rate the effectiveness of some of the many sites that are proliferating like Fine Art America, and Art Pickle?  My students ask me all the time which ones are the best, and I look around and each time there are a dozen new ones.

In the past I have paid membership fees for some of these sites, but I don’t think any of them have resulted in sales.  Maybe name recognition but little business.

What do you find out when you look at them… Any advice?”

In response, to Which online galleries are best?, I replied that it would vary artist to artist, and I offered to do a case study to analyze some of the factors an artist might consider when deciding which online galleries to try. Alan’s student Danielle Burch volunteered to be the subject and I reviewed her artwork, bio/CV and website here. Also I’m assuming that the main goal of all the student artists in Alan Singer’s class is to get sales– although it’s nearly impossible to divorce the necessary visibility of art from sales of art.

WHERE YOUR FRIENDS ARE…

Danielle also identified a site, Art Pickle, as popular with students, writing that “Art Pickle is a website that allows artists to promote their art and open studio events along with links to galleries hosting or sponsoring their work.”

I agree, that where your artist friends are selling is an important factor to consider. When I viewed Danielle’s art, right away I thought of the site Deviant Art , which has long been a site for young artists actively engaged in cross-promotions with their friends and actively building a large following and achieving consistent sales. Being an active artist on the Deviant Art online gallery site is the key to success.

GENRE

When I first viewed the images of the paintings Danielle Burch sent –above and below in this article–I thought they were Surrealism, perhaps with aspects of Pop Surrealism and Dystopian art, which are very specific genres or niche markets.

Although Danielle may not agree, and may be heading in a different direction with different interests, as stated in her Artists Statement,  she sees her work as a series dealing with “abstraction, realism and assemblage to convey aspects of hearing loss related to my life story,” and combining “abstraction and trompe l’oeil” in her paintings.

Since I see her work as primarily Surrealism, I’d suggest that for increased visibility she might get a free page featuring her work on the UK site Surrealism, and perhaps join a Surrealist group, such as the BeInArt Surreal Art Collective that publishes books of their art, and puts on curated group exhibitions while maintaining a strong online presence.

For sales, Danielle might add her portfolio to two large and diverse online galleries, one is Saatchi, which has featured a Saatchi Surrealism Collection. Saatchi is known for having an annual high volume of art sales in all price ranges and for putting on live exhibitions of online gallery artworks. In 2013, a BBC News article quoted Rebecca Wilson, Director of Saatchi Gallery as saying, ” We sell more art in a month that most brick-and-mortar galleries do in a year.” Saatchi has offices in New York City and Los Angeles, California and they put on live exhibits in both US cities.

The second large online gallery, Ugallery features the Surrealism genre here. Ugallery stated that, “almost 70% of artists have sold one painting through Ugallery, and one sale usually leads to more.”

MORE ABOUT DANIELLE

While working toward her Master of Fine Arts degree at RIT, Danielle Burch has

served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for Watercolors, Drawing II and Printmaking,

an Adjunct Professor and a Gallery Assistant at Gallery R. Throughout her first year,

Burch completed illustrations for a children’s book, and showed artwork in Rochester,

Oregon, Massachusetts, and North Carolina, where she held her first solo exhibition.

Artist Marketing Resources has been researching online galleries since early 2008 and shares an e-list 1,100+ Places to Sell Your Art on Selz with credit card or via PayPal option here and Artist Print Sales Sites and Resources here–both are also in our new Shopify Store here.