Tagsmart blog

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Alanna Eakin, Tagsmart Artist of the Week

Alanna Eakin

Alanna Eakin’s work has tickled our fancy this week. Working from her South London studio, Alanna creates vibrant paintings that take on two forms: one expressive and abstract, the other figurative and controlled. 

Driven by a love of vibrant and saturated colour, Alanna’s latest body of abstract work is enchanting and uplifting. Alanna works quickly, layering mixed media on canvas and paper to establish a base colour palette. From there she adds detail in an experimental and spontaneous way, inviting us to find something new in every stroke. 

Don’t miss the chance to see Alanna’s work in the paint!

She will be exhibiting at the Talented Art Fair on 1-3 March and also at Roy's People Art Fair on 4-7 April.

On 9-12 May, Alanna will present a selection of her works at Wimbledon Studios.

Alanna's work is represented by Artrepublic, NYA Gallery and Jealous.

Did you know you can submit your works to select online channels through your Tagsmart profile? Create one now and sell your works with leading online galleries.

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Louise Boulter. Tagsmart Artist of the Week

Louise Boulter

This week we’re bringing you the brilliant and quirky world of Louise Boulter. In her current series ‘Observations of Character’ Louise forces us to explore the individual’s sense of isolation through clever cropping and abstraction of the figure.

Louise’s work magnifies the disconnect between sitter and the ‘outside’ world: a feeling of discord with one’s surroundings and oneself. 

Louise is currently exhibiting three works at Mccully & Crane Art Gallery, Rye.  Mccully & Crane blurs the lines between the old and new, celebrating the work of contemporary artists alongside mid-century European paintings.

Louise Boulter is a London-based painter and a recent Art and Design (BA Hons) graduate from Kingston University. 

In 2018 Louise exhibited with the curatorial project Warbling Collective.

Did you know you can submit your works to select online channels through your Tagsmart profile? Create one now and sell your works with leading online galleries.

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Tagsmart dinner 2019 - My Art Haven

Last night we had the pleasure of hosting our annual Tagsmart dinner at The Groucho Club. Founded in 1985, the Groucho has been dubbed “the approved watering hole for the creative industries”, attracting a long list of incredible artists over the years.

We had a brilliant evening with friends from a whole range of backgrounds and discussed the ways in which we all aim to contribute to the future of the art world.

To mark the occasion we asked each of our guests one simple question: if money and space were no object, what artwork would you have in your living room?

We’ve been asking this question for more than two years and are constantly delighted by the unpredictability and range of responses. We’ve shared last night’s incredible list below with you.

Michael Hoppen (Director of Michael Hoppen Gallery) kicked off proceedings with the magnificent triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights by the Early Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch.

Sophie Noire (Senior Business Development Executive at Tagsmart) chose Urs Fischer’s Bread House. Presented for the first time at the Milan Triennale in 2004, this piece would occupy her entire living room!

Adriano Picinati di Torcello (Director of Global Art & Finance and Coordinator at Deloitte Luxembourg) selected Fire and Water, a part of the Martyrs series by the famous video artist Bill Viola.

Pavel Baskakov (Product Manager at Tagsmart) chose an artefact rather than an artwork: an Astrolabe from the 10th Century by Ahmed Ben Khalaf.

Elinor Olisa (Director and Co-Founder of Artellite) would be happy to have any piece by Picasso, however, if she had to choose (and considering that space is no object) her must-have piece would be Guernica.

Charlotte Britton (Key Accounts Manager at Tagsmart) picked the bronze work Chroma by the leading American-figurative sculptor Richard MacDonald for its sheer ambition and dynamism.

Selina Day (Spokesperson for street artist Bambi) would own anything by the photographer Ansel Adams.

Melanie Gerlis (Columnist & contributor at the Financial Times, Editor at large at The Art Newspaper) selected a fascinating Medieval Manuscript calendar.

Steve Cooke (Chief Innovation Officer & Co-Founder of Tagsmart) chose a small abstracted landscape by British artist Gerald Park, an inspiring man who picks up a paint brush every single day.

Caroline Von Massenbach (Senior Specialist Prints and Multiples at Bonhams) wants to always be connected to the sea through a seascape by Gerhard Richter.

Marine Tanguy (Founder of MTArt Agency) chose Géricault’s The Raft of Medusa, a painting that had a lasting impact on her when she saw it for the first time. However, Marine insisted on leaving the work in the Louvre to ensure that others are able to experience the same emotions she felt.

Charlotte Bearn (Managing director at Tagsmart) chose the captivating animations of William Kentridge, based on the artist’s charcoal drawings. Charlotte would screen the animations alongside a display of the sketches.

Brandei Estes (Head of Photography at Sotheby’s London) didn’t hesitate to choose Las Meninas by Velazquez, a painting that encourages her to find something new in everything she looks at it.

Natalia Gonzalez Martin (Business Development Executive at Tagsmart and curator) chose another Spanish work Drowning Dog by Goya.

Isobel Beauchamp (Co-Founder and Director of Artellite) would like to have the ArcelorMittal Orbit, the monumental interactive sculpture by Anish Kapoor that stands the Olympic Park, Stratford. Isobel currently sees it every morning from her living room window but wouldn't mind moving it a little closer to home.

Romane Howsam (Founder of Lymited) choose The Kiss by Gustav Klimt.

Jamie Gourlay (Co-Founder of Queen’s Fine Art and 10 Hanover) would like to have any of David Hockney’s Swimming Pool series.

Katherine Oliver (Art Sales Programme Curator at the Royal Academy) would line her living room floor with turf and invite Richard Long to create a masterpiece.

Tom Toumazis (Executive Chairman at Tagsmart) requested one of the unique documentary images of the D-Day landings by Robert Capa, the only photographer to arrive with the first wave on Omaha Beach.

And you? What artwork would you choose for your living room if money and space were no object? If you’d like to share your artwork with us, write to us here.

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Ioana Baltan, Tagsmart Artist of the Week

Ioana Baltan

Ioana’s paintings explore the human condition through physiognomy in an attempt to expose deeper emotional energies. Instinctive and decisive brushstrokes define her paintings, coupled with subdued tones that emphasise the darker side of the figures.  “My painting is a form of understanding the world, and is influenced both by my perceptions of people, and by music.”

Ioana has exhibited worldwide, including in London, Romania and Italy. She is represented by GO Contemporary Gallery, which focuses on promoting Romanian and other international emerging artists. In 2019 Ioana’s work will be featured in several magazines including A5 Magazine, Average Art and Wotisart.

Ioana’s next solo exhibition will take place at Bones and Pearls Gallery in London from 15th February to 7th March. We hope to see you there!

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Claudia Legge, Tagsmart Artist of the Week

Claudia Legge

Claudia Legge has been a key player in the underwater photography world ever since she graduated. With her photos she creates ethereal and dreamy images inspired by a fascination with light, water, colour and nudity.  The viewer is constantly confronted by the colour that every day hits the eye in each surrounding.

Her work has been selected for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2018. The exhibition takes place at the National Portrait Gallery until the 27 of this month.

Claudia is a member of World Wide Women Collective, a creative group of female photographers and artists from around the world representing women in the world of art today.

Since graduating Claudia has exhibited widely across London in both group and solo shows, including the Glemham Hall, Talisman London and at the Truman Brewery.

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Alexander Heaton, Tagsmart Artist of the Week

Alexander Heaton

Alexander Heaton's art reaches deep into the imagination. Combining a love of painting, printmaking and mountaineering, Alexander uses mixed media to explore man's primeval interaction with nature.

"My work teeters on the edge of a cinematographic realism and also at times uses sampled vignettes of other painter's work."

Alexander's artistic journey continues to draw on the Romantic tradition, adapting it for a twenty first century audience.

In 2018, Alexander took part in a two-man exhibition at A-side B-side Gallery in collaboration with artist Mark Metcalfe.

Alexander will be taking part in a show with Andrew Macgregor later on in 2019. Stay tuned for more information.

A notable achievement was Alexander’s solo show The Secret of the Runes at London’s Residence Gallery in 2011 which was selected to be included in the Pulse Art Fair, Miami to much critical acclaim.

He has also shown in The Future Can Wait, a multidisciplinary survey show which was conceived to complement and complete London’s Frieze.

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Delphine Lebourgeois, Tagsmart Artist of the Week

Delphine Lebourgeois

Delphine works in a variety of mediums - including digital, collage, ink, watercolour and screenprint - while maintaining drawing at the core of her practice.  Her work takes inspiration from different stylistic sources, ranging from Botticelli to comic books, and combines symbols and cultural references in a playful and often irreverent way. Delphine completed a Masters in Illustration at Central St Martins in 2005 after studying Fine Art at Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon.

Delphine’s work is being shown at Pop Art Femmes, an exhibition curated by Gina Cross in collaboration with Artsy, until 21 December. The exhibition showcases work by 10 contemporary artists that represent some of the more joyful aspects of being a woman in the 21st century.

Delphine’s work has been included in several group exhibitions throughout 2018, including the London Art Fair, The Other Art Fair and the Royal Academy. Her most recent solo exhibition 'Prelude' took place in October 2018 at Jealous Gallery and will continue at Jealous North from 30 January to 17 February 2019. 

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Rhiannon Rebecca, Winner of the Tagsmart Open Call

We are delighted to announce Rhiannon Rebecca as one of the winners of Tagsmart's first Open Call for all practising artists. 

Rhiannon is a London-based painter who recently graduated from theTurps Banana Painting Programme, having completed an MA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art. Through the reinterpretation of found images from aspirational fashion and lifestyle magazines, Rhiannon’s work becomes a tool to investigate the role of women in contemporary culture. 

Her first solo exhibition, ‘Accessorise With A Tiger’, took place at the Arusha Gallery in Edinburgh in 2018. Rhiannon was the winner of this year’s Darbyshire Prize for Emerging Artists. You can see her work at Darbyshire Ltd. in Islington, London until March 6th 2019.

Her recent residencies include the Panorama Residency in Guadalajara in 2015/16 and the Rimbun Dahan Residency in Malaysia in 2014.

Rhiannon has been involved in group exhibitions at several galleries around the world including Saatchi Gallery, Flowers Gallery, COB Gallery, TransitionGallery and Subsidiary Projects.

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Tere Chad, Winner of the Tagsmart Open Call

We are delighted to announce Tere Chad as one of the winners of Tagsmart's first Open Call for all practising artists. 

Tere is a London-based artist and a graduate of Central Saint Martins (MA Art and Science). Tere uses mixed media to explore and contrast past civilisations with contemporary society. Her work seeks a balance between haptic sensitivity and new technologies, which on the one hand offer us new opportunities but on the other hand separate us from our natural instincts.

She has had four solo exhibitions and participated in more than 15 group shows across four different continents, including at the Museo de Artes Decorativas in Chile, Tate Exchange in London, the Royal Society, the Gordon Museum, and the Central Library in Leeds.

Tere is the Co-Founder of the Latinos Creative Society at the University of the Arts London. She recently curated NEO NORTE, an Innovative Proposal of Latino Arts without European Filters at Fundación Cultural de Providencia, Santiago, Chile. 

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Tagsmart Firts Open Call

Thank you to everyone who participated in our first Open Call! We were thrilled to receive so many high calibre submissions and we want to thank everyone for their time.

After much deliberation, we were able to shortlist four artists: Tere Chad, Rhiannon Salisbury, Alexander Heaton and Delphine Lebourgeois.

The two final winner of this first edition of the Tagsmart Open Call are Rhiannon Rebecca Salisbury and Tere Chad.

Both artists will receive full Tagsmart certification of their selected work as well as features across all our social media channels and newsletter.

We are really excited to have them all on board and cannot wait to see what they produce next.

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Maxwell Rushton: Tagsmart Artist of the Week

#TagsmartArtistoftheWeek is Maxwell Rushton. Intertwining performance, painting, drawing and sculpture, Maxwell’s portfolio explores cultural phenomena and his own human condition.

The theme of homelessness has found its way into Maxwell’s practice on many occasions, including in his award-winning work, ‘Left Out’. Five separate edits of the original footage went viral, reaching over 40 million people.

This year Maxwell was awarded two prestigious art prizes. His work ‘Left Out’ received the Public Vote Prize at this year's Chaiya Art Awards. Maxwell also won the Zealous Emerge Art Prize, which received over 2,200 submissions this year.

Maxwell’s work has received global press coverage, including The Evening Standard, and The Huffington Post. “In today’s contemporary art world, many artists push social boundaries to prove a point, shock their audiences and create conversations. Artist Maxwell Rushton uses his art to do just that.”  

Made in Shoreditch

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We are thrilled to announce our new partnership with ART GODA, an online art boutique that also represents artists and reaches their local audience in Zurich through pop-up exhibitions.

ART GODA is a contemporary online art boutique, specialising in abstract paintings, large limited edition prints on canvas and unique bronze and stone sculptures. The boutique represents artists and serves collectors on a global level and reaches the local audience in Zurich through pop-up exhibitions.

ART GODA represents talented artists who do not belong to the closed circle of the art world elite, but nevertheless are creating beautiful artworks and are truly devoted to their creative ideas. All artworks listed in this online gallery are carefully curated by its founder Goda Smilingyte and from now on will be certified through Tagsmart.

“We are excited to be collaborating with Art Goda, it is such a pleasure to see how devoted they are towards all of their artists. We are happy to be part of their journey by protecting and enriching the value of their works. We are thrilled for what is next to come. “

Charlotte Bearn, Managing Director at Tagsmart

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Helen Brough, Natural Realities

With a natural curiosity in the unconscious and how the inner is brought out through dreams and illusions, the imagery of Helen's art - landscape or abstract - is concerned with her perception of reality. A poetic thread runs through her work reflecting the force of nature in the process of being.  

Helen graduated from Chelsea School of Art with an MA in Sculpture in 1990, since then, her artistic trajectory has included group and solo shows internationally, such as The Other Art Fair in Brooklyn NY, the RA Summer Show in London.

Her work has been subject to several awards and residencies including the Artist Residency Bemis Foundation for Contemporary Art in Omaha NE, USA and the Prix de Rome (British School of Rome).

Helen is represented by The Nordic Art Agency, which has been designed specifically to support private collectors & galleries to access unique international contemporary artists.  

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An Intimate Portrait of a Legend

Penguin books have just released ‘Ricochet’ by Denis O’Regan, who is a member of the Tagsmart artists community. Ricochet contains photographs of David Bowie from his famous tour in 1983.

The book offers an intimate portrait of the man of the million faces, allowing us to see Bowie’s more human side. Often playful and almost childish, through the lenses of Denis, we are able to come closer to the myth.

“In 1983 the rock photographer Denis O'Regan toured the world with David Bowie, shooting the action on stage and behind the scenes. Capturing moments of rehearsal and relaxation, O'Regan's work gives an unguarded view of the musician and an intimate view of life on the road.”

Backstage with David Bowie, BBC News

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The Art of Seeing - Photography and painting converge in Alice Gur-Aire’s work

Alice Gur-Aire is an award-nominated artist whose work has been auctioned at Christie’s, exhibited at the Iceland Embassy of London and held in collections all around the world including the UK, the USA, Israel, Germany and Canada.

Inspired by the natural world, landscapes, seascapes, wildlife and images of nature dominate her portfolio. Ranging in style from bold saturated abstracts to soft, textured tones, her work reflects an unending on new ways of seeing.

Describing herself as an interpreter who “wants to engage both head and heart”, she takes photographs around the  world and re-paints them digitally by hand into contemporary fine art images.

Discover more of her work on her instagram.

Alice is represented by Curious Duke Gallery in London, and The Apple Gallery in Bath.

Her work has been recently exhibited in London as part of the Roy’s People Art Fair and has been selected for the Aesthetica Art Price. and the Terry O’Neill Tag Photography Award.

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The Art Market Day

#​​​Tagsmart new appointed Managing Director Charlotte Bearn will be attending #TheArtMarketDay, a conference for senior art market professionals organised by Le Quotidien de l'Art at the Centre Pompidouin Paris. ​

The Art Market Day is the first Paris-based conference for senior art market professionals: dealers, auctioneers, art advisors, experts, insurance providers, shippers, etc. The conference gathers European professionals around panel discussions and keynotes on the new challenges and transformations of the art market.

The conference, which is organised by Le Quotidien de l’Art, the leading digital news provider for the art world, will allow industry experts to share their experience and vision. Debates will be moderated by journalists from Le Quotidien de l’Art as well as market gurus.

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Codex and Tagsmart's partnership will create a new layer of trust in the art market by combining their blockchain and DNA tagging/Certificate technologies

We have partnered with Codex as our first blockchain provider. Soon our users will be able to commit Tagsmart provenance records to the Codex blockchain.

In addition to our current data security and backup, we believe that Codex blockchain distributed ledger technology will further help to protect our user's provenance records against modification and loss.

Artwork provenance records are an integral part of our Triple Lock Solution. We are therefore extremely pleased that we will soon be able to offer an added layer of security for those users who wish to use blockchain technology.