1. Create a Signature Style

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, what makes an artist stand out at exhibition—anywhere really—comes down to one thing: You need a signature style. Every great artist you know about has a recognizable style, technique, color palette, or subject matter. You can look at the work and know immediately who did it. Make sure the work you select reflects a streamlined style.

2. Select Only Your Best Work

Although there may be a desire to show off your entire range of abilities and interests—don’t. At least not at a show. Unless you’re a gallery owner representing many artists at once, don’t fill up the booth with a variety of work and styles. Buyers and collectors are informed. They don’t want a one-and-done painting. They’re looking to see if an artist has staying power and a signature. If you are working with a gallery, make sure you send them your best and most current work.

3. Presentation Is Everything

Art shows are a great opportunity to expose your artwork to masses of potential new clients and trade buyers, but there is always A LOT going on. Maximize your booth. Create beautiful wall layouts that don’t overwhelm the visitors. Letting a few pieces shine makes an impactful statement to the buyer.
Preparation is key. Come ready with handouts that have a description of your work, an artist statement, and your contact details. Make sure you spend some money on quality framing and hang your work properly. Presentation is everything. You need to give your art—and buyers—room to breathe.

4. Build Relationships with Clients

Becoming a successful, well-known artist is not something that happens overnight—for anyone. You need to build relationships with your buyers. Take time with your visitors. Get to know them and what they’re interested in. Exchange cards. Encourage visitors to follow you on social media or sign up for your newsletter. Don’t sit down in your booth. Don’t eat in your booth. Don’t look at your phone. Give visitors your full attention. They may not buy this time, but if they come back, they will be more likely to come to your booth again because they have built a rapport with you. Your buyers want to know you as an artist with staying power. They are investing in you and your work. Give them a good reason to.

5. The Price Has to Be Right

Another key aspect of success is pricing the work. Every piece of work should have a title, artist, size, and price information clearly labeled. Don’t go to a show not knowing how much your work (and time) is worth. This is always a starting point and encourages the consumer to ask questions such as: Where did the title of this piece come from? Who is this artist? Where are you from? Questions such as these open the piece for discussion and allow you or your dealer to engage the consumer, encourage sales, and get a feel for the type of pricing the market will support. A piece that you feel was priced on the higher end might be a no-brainer for an interested and seasoned collector. Or, perhaps you’ve out-priced yourself, given the reaction of passersby. Either way, you’ll know for next time what works best.

If you’re thinking about attending a trade show but the logistics (setting up and selling the work), not to mention the cost of attending as a solo artist, intimidates you, consider partnering with a gallery to show your work. My team at ADC and I have been doing it successfully for years. We work hard to prepare the booth, ship and install the art, and spend every minute of our day during the trade show making your work stand out to buyers. We can focus on selling your work so you can focus on creating more of it.

Let us take care of all the details for you! To learn more, visit blink.adcfineart.com/pages/shows or contact Chelsea Tucker Moore, our artist relationship director, at chelsea@blinkartresource.com.

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First of all, there is nothing like being in New York in the Spring. The flowers were blooming, the sun was shining, and everything felt new and filled with possibility—especially at Artexpo New York. This show is always an exciting time for us here at ADC. It kicks off our sales season for the year and marks the launch of our annual Blink Art Resource catalog.

We always show up so excited to meet artists, showcase their work, and meet with gallery owners, designers, and art lovers from all over the world.  We literally could not do what we do without them, and it always feels so great to meet the people who make us possible and thank them for their support in person. It’s because of artists, interior designers, gallery owners, buyers, and collectors we are always so thrilled to head to New York each year. And boy were we there in full force—champagne in hand, ready to celebrate all that’s new, hot, and on trend with all of our favorite people.

Artexpo New York is More Popular with Buyers than Ever Before

Every year Artexpo New York gets more popular with buyers and more inspiring than the year before. This year nearly 33,000 visitors (up 10 percent from last year) showed up to admire and buy art.  If you have never been or never showed your artwork there before, you need to put it on your bucket list. (Or contact Chelsea Tucker, our Artist Relations Director, she’ll help get you there! We’re already planning for our next trade show!) It is a show like none other for us. We personally gave away 1,000 VIP tickets before the show and had more interested and qualified buyers than ever before. We are always a highly sought after gallery, but this year was definitely going in the books as one of our best.  Literally, thousands stopped by our booth to admire and buy the incredible work of our artists.

Here are just the Top Five Highlights of Artexpo New York 2017.

 1. We were prepared to sell art.

Okay, I work in the industry of art. I know there are buyers of art. I know there are people who love to make art. But, when you go to an event like Artexpo, you see firsthand just how passionate people are about buying art. They know their stuff and they know what they want! For example, within the first HOUR of the show opening, I sold over 50 pieces. 50! Red dots everywhere! I felt like Oprah. You get a dot! You get a dot! You get a dot!
People sought our booth out, knew exactly what artists they wanted, and weren’t going to wait to buy. That speaks VOLUMES to me. This tells me that:

• The artists we represent at ADC/Blink Art are highly sought after and people are paying attention to their work.
• Gallerists, art collectors, and buyers know exactly what they want because they have seen it before—if not at tradeshows, our printed publication Blink Art Resource, then they’ve found us online on our website. (We had over 90,000 touchpoints of marketing BEFORE we even got to Artexpo New York. That’s a lot of exposure for our artists!)
• Designers and buyers knew exactly what they were looking for when they came.
• We were prepared to sell. Before we stepped foot into the show, we had set up back-to-back meetings with buyers, designers, and gallery owners. We had listened to their needs beforehand and were sure to bring the works they were looking to buy.
• We listened to the buyers on the floor. We listened to every single one of our buyer’s and visitor’s needs. I can personally attest we know exactly where every piece purchased is headed—we can actually visualize the rooms that our buyers described when they were looking for a piece to buy.

 2. Our booth was gorgeous.

Without a shadow of a doubt, our booth is always a show-stopper. My team works for months beforehand, carefully selecting work, artists, and planning the layout of the booth. And then they arrive early to set the booth up in record time. Every year I arrive and I am just overwhelmed at what my team is able to accomplish in a few hours of set-up. Thanks to ADC’s award-winning Gallery Director, Elizabeth Davis, and our Artist Relations Director, Chelsea Tucker, our booth looked beautiful and appealed to everyone who stepped foot in it.

3. We were on TREND and had ART everyone is talking about.

The biggest colors of the year are teal, aqua, magenta, and a beautiful carnary yellow. The Pantone color of the year Greenery is big too. But, everywhere I turned I saw bright, bold, and rich jewel tones throughout the expo. There was also loads of metallic pieces—gold, silver, and copper. Warm metals have made a huge comeback and you’ll be seeing them everywhere.  Dimensional work, including sculpture, glass, and metallic works are in high demand. Gallerists, designers, and collectors couldn’t stop gushing over our artists Renato Foti’s and Lea DeWit’s pieces and Ken Rausch’s curved copper and stainless steel pieces.

4. We launched our 2017 Blink Art Resource.

Here I am with my sister Sylvia Rombis, art dealer and gallery owner extraordinaire, viewing the BRAND NEW Blink Art Resource. She loves using this catalog for her client projects.

It is a Herculean effort to pull this book together each year and have it ready by Artexpo, but somehow my team ALWAYS does it. It’s a gorgeous book filled with inspiring design ideas and artwork. I know I am biased, but I have to say the artwork in the book is just exceptional. There isn’t a project you’re working on that wouldn’t benefit from a piece of artwork from our Blink artists. (FYI: Over 10,000 Blink Art Resource books will be shipped next week to interior designers, trade buyers, art consultants, and galleries next week. Stay tuned!)

 5. I presented a few secrets of the art world.

On Sunday of the Artexpo New York, I was so fortunate to lead a seminar for artists. I was able to present some of my very own secrets from my forthcoming book Secrets of the Art World and share just a few of the lessons I’ve learned in the past twenty-five years of working in the art world. It occurred to me that these lessons are constantly evolving and changing, just as the art world is. We need each other to learn, grow, and succeed. I love to go to events like Artexpo to get reenergized, inspired, and excited about the work I do every day. And artists need a place they can go to see what others are doing, experience the business aspects of the art world, and network with other artists, collectors, and gallery owners. That’s why I created the Success Summit (to be held at ADC on June 9^th-10^th) so that artists could come together and learn from experts. I am also so proud and honored to have Eric Smith, the CEO of Redwood Media which owns Artexpo New York, as a speaker this year. He’ll be on hand to answer any questions artist may have about showing their work for maximum impact.

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