The biggest survey of its kind, Artfinder’s Annual Artist Impact Report surveying 6,000 artists in more than 100 registered countries reveals changing attitudes within the arts following more than a year of pandemic and intermittent international lockdowns.
The new Artfinder report indicates that 61% of artists “now find digital platforms more important than galleries for selling their work”. The Annual Artist Impact Report surveys individual artists from a host of global countries, 85% of whom also exhibit with art galleries or museums. Following the seismic shift in the arts industry due to the impact of COVID-19, the survey’s results show a growing appetite for not only online promotion but exhibiting in the visual arts.
Other findings include:
- 61.3% find digital platforms, including social media, more important for sharing and selling their work than galleries
- 63.8% have thought about sustainability in their art practice more this year
- 53.7% have been more influenced than usual by world events
Artist James Earley – who spent the last year working on a series of portraits of NHS staff and patients for St Bartholomew’s Hospital’s intensive care unit – told Artfinder: “Before the pandemic 90% of my income came from exhibitions and art fairs, and now it has swung the other way with the majority of my income coming from online sales including Artfinder, who sold my first ever painting online.”
The report also details Artfinder’s sustainability work, including planting one tree for every artwork sold through the site, totalling 56,739 trees since November 2020. The site has also become a founding member of the Million Tree Pledge, committing to planting 1 million trees by 2030.
Artfinder CEO, Michal Szczesny, said: “I think in this last year we’ve really seen people become more interested in supporting sustainable and ethical businesses and we’ve also seen a shift to online which has helped change this perception of online as the ‘poor relation’ in the art world. Both of those changes have created a kind of ‘perfect storm’ for Artfinder that has seen our new customer growth at over 100% year on year and it’s a trend we look forward to growing further in the years to come.”
You can read Artfinder’s full Artist Impact Report here.
Read Next
Raven Leilani wins the 2021 International Dylan Thomas Prize for her debut novel Luster.
NHS portrait Courtesy of James Earley
