It's the Wedding Season! Register Your Wedding Gift List With Artery Gallery

An art gift from Artery Gallery is not only a beautiful addition to any home but can also be an investment for the future. Artery Gallery are able to organise your wedding gift list, so you can be a little different and receive a memorable wedding present that you will cherish for years to come.

As the bride and groom, you can choose Artery Gallery as one of your wedding gift list venues. Guests can purchase the selected art you have chosen in your list, whether they buy individually or club together in groups.

Alternatively, the bride and groom can request guests to buy Artery Gallery gift vouchers. These can be purchased individually by guests, and then collected together by the happy couple at the appropriate time. The gift vouchers can then be brought into either of the galleries at a time to suit themselves to choose their favourite pieces of art.

Our wedding gift registration service offers you the opportunity to commemorate your wedding day with a list of gift ideas for your friends and family to choose from.

Anything from clocks and sculpture, to paintings and wall hangings are available, giving you the inspiration and opportunity to build your own collection of unique, original artwork.

When registering your wedding or civil partnership, you receive a catalogue of ideas and suggestions from us, which you can also add your own choices to. When you have chosen all the gifts you hope for, we will complete your registration by adding you and your partner-to-be to our website – with a web-page of your very own. This will include photographs, dimensions and prices of all the items you choose, with a secure, online purchasing function. Your friends and family will be able to browse the pages of your gift list before deciding on their purchase.

Friends and family can even combine their finances to purchase a larger item such as a painting, which can be reserved for your list by paying a deposit of 20%.

Create you own unique wedding gift list today here at Artery Gallery.

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The China Effect - Painting by Sheer Numbers

There have long been complaints on the forgeries of all kinds of goods from designer fashion to golf clubs, and watches to CDs and DVDs, all pouring out of China. This is nothing more than copying Western products for Western consumption. A strange way for any society to grow and prosper but what does this really mean in terms of our own values?

China's low wages and hunger for exports have already changed many industries, the art world, at least art for the masses, seems to be next, and is emerging as a miniature case study of China's successful expansion in a long list of small industries that when added together represent a huge chunk of it’s economic activity.

With the art market seen as a lucrative area, China continues to rapidly expand its art colleges, turning out tens of thousands of skilled artists each year willing to work cheaply. In the village of Dafen in particular, just outside Shenzen, factories have been set up purely for these art students and graduates to work, where the assembly line paintings are produced and sold throughout the world via the Internet.

The artists working on the assembly line divide up the colour, each possibly only using 2 or 3 colours. Working their way briskly along a line of up to 20 identical contemporary-style paintings, the artists will apply perhaps a few strokes of brown, while the next worker along applies the red, and so on.

The fact that the country is producing hand painted copies of old masters is only a small part of it. The main push by China has been in the broad market for works that retail for anything up to £200, with painters who work from postcards or images on the Internet. Due to the amount of interest the original works gain, popular artworks on all levels from across Europe and the US, are being copied in China and then exported back into the Western market. China's ability to turn what has long been an individual practice into a mass production industry will no doubt affect small-scale artists, as well as many galleries and various art colonies in the West.

When someone purchases one of these ‘Original Oil Paintings’, they are acquiring a piece that could have been painted by 10 different artists. So what is the advantage of owning such a thing? If all you want is something to decorate the walls and something that has no individual meaning or worth, surely a £1.99 poster would suffice.

So what can be done about the influx of copies arriving from China? As an art gallery, we are always trying to take steps to protect our exhibiting artist’s work, but the volume of artwork on the Internet is staggering and realistically impossible to keep track on what is being copied. The main aims are to protect the artists that create the original work and help the buyers protect their investments.

Perhaps copyright laws need to be more stringent. Previous laws were set up prior to this mass-production industry, so the principals and practice of copying art in general has changed considerably. If the laws on copyright were to be updated someway then that could go a long way in protecting the artist’s work.

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New Works From Artery Gallery's Latest Success Story

We are pleased to announce that we have just taken in 2 new paintings from Perth based artist Scott Carruthers, exhibiting here at the gallery in St. Andrews.

"Out By My Side" - by Scott Carruthers

Scott’s paintings have attracted many admirers during his previous sell-out exhibitions at Artery Gallery, where his original style and thought provoking images have captured the imagination.

Largely inspired over the years by the art of Andy Warhol, David Hockney and LS Lowry, the biggest inspiration for his work has been his two young children.

The stories behind Scott’s paintings are based on the mix of nostalgia from his own childhood along with watching his two young kids grow up. Not necessarily making any comparisons, but being reminded of the nostalgic years and how their life today differs in these modern times, yet in some ways have some similarities to Scott’s own childhood.

Scott explains, “Each individual painting is telling its own story, however the description is only secondary to the image itself. I like to add my own thoughts behind the piece so that the viewer knows exactly what I was thinking regarding the particular painting and my reasons for it. Although this is designed to work alongside and compliment the image, I do find sometimes that the viewer has already made up their own mind anyway before they even know my written description. I am always fascinated by people’s thoughts on my work and their imaginations are understandably diverse”.

Last year Scott Carruthers signed a major publishing deal with one of the UK’s largest fine art publishers, which has resulted in numerous exhibitions of his original work and limited editions going on show across the country.

Scott adds, “It’s great to have my original work on show at Artery Gallery once again as it’s where I enjoyed my first success as an artist”.

Artery Gallery, based in both St Andrews and Crieff, has been a major supporter of contemporary artists over the years and continues to boost the profiles of up and coming artists, as well as the well established.

www.arteryuk.com

Buying and Investing in Art

Any time is really a good time to consider buying and even investing in good quality original fine art, and you don’t need to be an Oil Tycoon to do so!

Imagine a loved painting hanging in your office where you can enjoy the pleasure of ownership throughout your working day, or a wonderful artwork that greets you when you come home. These are good reasons to buy fine art, but the reasons to buy do not have to be limited to just this.

Investing in quality fine art has consistently kept pace with the stock market over the last few decades now and recently, due to the rise in the international art market and the much-coveted decline of stock market shares, begun to out pace it considerably. That not only includes works by the blue chip artists both living and deceased, but also works by lesser-known artists. Paintings by artists who are selling in the best galleries, emerging artists with new art theories and even those by well known artists of the past can be very affordable.

Investing in fine art does not need to cost the thousands to millions of pounds that we read about in the news. These are usually only over inflated prices anyway specially targeted for Russian and Arab businessmen with over inflated bank accounts!

Anyone can purchase a good quality piece of art at an affordable price if they know what they want and where to find it. The Internet is a great place to do research on the styles you like and on the artists themselves and is certainly less time consuming and more feasible than visiting the numerous art galleries. If you can visit your local and national galleries to help get inspired, this all helps, and it has to be said that seeing art exhibited in an actual gallery does help you connect with the work.

The common outlook and probably best advice is to just ‘buy what you like’ first and buy as an investment second, but it is very possible to do both, to have a painting you love and also something that you know you will not lose anything on. A painting wont break down or need upgrading, and if it is a piece you love, it will never get old and tired. So unlike pretty much anything else you spend money on, it wont mean you will be out of pocket on it. This means it can certainly be seen as an investment, especially if you have done that little bit of research and obtained an artwork by an artist that does establish him or herself. Or you may even just get lucky and have a billionaire bidding war on works by the same artist, and this sort of profile boosting is something money cant buy!

For business owners, Investing in art can be an affordable way for any size of business to increase and maintain customers and client bases.

Many small business owners, especially professionals such as doctors, lawyers, dentists and financial advisors, have experienced the benefits of displaying good investment quality art in their offices and reception areas.

Recent studies have shown that products benefit with increased sales when marketed with fine art. Professionals who display good fine art in their places of business experience that their clients and customers view them as having more authenticity, authority and professionalism. Restaurant owners have also come to find that art helps bring in customers, not just prints for decoration but good quality fine art.

A business purchasing original art can also reap the benefit of an investment that increases in value over time. There can even be a tax advantage as the art, or part of the purchase price can be deducted, just like any other office furnishing. Depending on the work and its value there are other possible tax advantages to be had from loaning work to shows or even local museums.

The overall important factor remains however, that investment in art is the visual pleasure received and if it has the potential to increase in value, even better.

A good place to start looking for original, contemporary art is at Artery Gallery of course!

Original Art for the Workplace

Well-chosen, good quality original art displayed in the workplace should be considered as being part of the welcome package of any company. It can provide a subtler and more innovative way of sending messages about the organisation, the approach and their people, and goes beyond the recognised company logo and corporate image identity.

In the increasingly competitive business environment, quality art is playing a key role in strengthening and communicating the image, ethos and values of a growing number of restaurants, hotel chains, companies and organisations. There are also other real benefits. Art has been shown to improve the staff environment and research has revealed that employees find art in the workplace extremely motivating. It makes people feel that their workplace is a creative and stimulating one. Staff often mention that they feel more inspired and motivated, when their stark and anonymous corporate walls are hung with uplifting art. As well as energising the working environment, artwork in the office has also been proven to have a subliminal effect in helping reduce stress among employees! What a great return from simply hanging a few well-chosen paintings!

Investing in original art can also show the companies involvement in supporting the arts community, whether local or national. Purchasing art can also be considered an investment for the business. Many world class businesses already buy original works year after year for this purpose and claiming them as investments and assets. Another plus is that the purchase of original artworks is treated similarly to that of office furnishings and is usually allowable against tax!

Visit the Artery Gallery website, pop into the galleries or call on St Andrews 01334 478221 or Crieff 01764 655722 to recieve any assistance you may need in purchasing the right artwork for your workplace.

www.arteryuk.com