Well from the 18th-22nd of March was the Other Art Fair Sydney, which I was exhibiting at. The fair was well organised but to be honest, I am not one for fairs but prefer exhibitions. Apparently, it is notoriously difficult to be accepted and over 1000 artists apply each year, although I was accepted and had quite a large stall. I displayed new abstract expressionism artworks that were created in 2021.
There were supposed to be 100,000 people in attendance but we had unprecedented rain so I am not sure, yet the organisers said the numbers were higher than expected. I would probably not be part of this fair again and prefer to work anonymously, choosing not to be the public face of my work but rather let the work speak for itself. I did like talking to many people about my work but I feel this places the emphasis on the artist’s personality and not the actual work. I think I like Banksy for this reason, he is anonymous and that is a good thing to be as an artist. Sure people want to know about you as an artist, particularly if they are collecting one of your works but the emphasis in my opinion should not be on the artist. As someone who paints in the genre of abstract expressionism, it was nice to see people’s reaction to my work. The usual comment was, “I love your work!”
One aspect of the fair that I did like was that people who had previously purchased my work came up and introduced themselves to me and we talking about the artwork they had and in its new home, with many sending photos of the artwork in place. That was a really nice surprise and I love to get photos of my artworks in people homes, which means more to me than selling. It makes it worthwhile to see that people put these artworks in their homes and in special places and it is loved.