GRADUATE SCOTTISH ARTISTS TO TAKE A PROACTIVE APPROACH

Tuesday, 26 September 2006 10:37

SCOTLAND - Graduate artists from Scottish Art Schools have recently been given a new platform this week on which to promote their work with the launch of Artistri online gallery.  Never before has it been possible to view the work of artists from the four main art schools in Scotland: Edinburgh College of Art; Glasgow School of Art; Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design; and Gray’s Art School in the same online exhibition.

Artistri’s Managing Director, Kevin Ross, says ‘newly graduated artists must find the process of arranging exhibitions extremely daunting.  Many have full time jobs and time is a crucial factor.  Artistri promotes them as artists and takes care of all the time consuming aspects of exhibiting from presentation to delivery’.

Many of the artists involved have already achieved a level of success through the highly regarded annual awards presented by the Royal Scottish Academy.  One such artist, Lara Scouller, who was awarded both the 2006 RSA Landscape Prize and the RSA Travelling Scholarship to Florence, enthused ‘this is a really good idea and definitely helps to promote Scottish art in a global context.  It’s encouraging to know that people from across the world can potentially view the work I have online’.

A benefit of discovering artists at the start of their career is that their artwork can be inexpensive and has the potential to increase in value in the years ahead.  Famous Scottish artists such as Peter Howson, Ken Currie and Simon Starling all graduated from Glasgow School of Art and it is their success that artistri hope to replicate in the new crop of talented artists.  Artistri has every confidence that some if not all of the artists online will become collected in the future.