ArtsMart: Making art and design easy and approachable

This article is part of a series we are running ahead of the Mada Marketplace event to feature the participating vendors.

ArtsMart was founded as a website selling Egyptian artworks in late 2012. Now it’s also a massive industrial exhibition space with poured concrete floors that has hosted art shows since December last year. It acts as a gallery representing the work of nine artists, and features over 60 on its website. Starting in May, ArtsMart will use the mezzanine overlooking its exhibition space to run workshops in making and appreciating both art and design.

Although the project is a successful business, hence its rapid expansion, Lina Mowafy and Dina Shaaban still don’t pay themselves a wage. The profits go right back into ArtsMart. “Passion” is a word the two welcoming 30-something women used a lot when Mada Masr met them in their large industrial space in Sheikh Zayed, a satellite city on the Cairo-Alexandria Road where cultural venues are few and far between.

Mowafy has a professional background in advertising, but is a practicing painter who gained first-hand experience of the lack of exhibition spaces and selling opportunities in Egypt for young, unknown artists. Shaaban has always been interested in art collecting, taking classes in the evening after her job in economics. They set up ArtsMart with their friend and business partner Hatem Zaazou, a marketing consultant.

They are proud of the transparency they are bringing to a market often known for its air of mystique and dodgy backroom deals. The price of each work is written next to it, both on the website and in the exhibition space. Each work on their website has already been collected by ArtsMart from the artist, photographed, and wrapped individually for storage in their warehouse. When a work is sold, artists get 65 percent and ArtsMart gets 35 percent. They use a shipping company to get works to clients, or sometimes even deliver themselves. Mowafy explained that a documented selling price solidifies the art’s value.

Artists can apply to participate through the website by uploading images of their artwork, and are selected by Mowafy and Shaaban. ArtsMart also approaches artists that they’re interested in, and the young, undiscovered artists they initially featured have now been joined by older, well-established artists such as George Bahgory, Mostafa Rahma and Mohamed Abla. If the artist is already working with a gallery, they go through the gallery, as they’re keen not to step on anyone’s toes and they're happy to collaborate.

The website, which only exists in the English language, was designed by Mitch Designs to be as accessible and unintimidating as possible, especially for those who have not bought art before. Thus it has carefully selected search options, such as “style: abstract, nature, people, sports, etc.” and “color: red, blue, green, black, white, etc.” as well as the more expected “medium” and “artist” options. There’s even a “view on your wall” function, where you can input the colors of the interior you want to buy an artwork for.

The idea is to have a wide range of art, an attempt to reflect the whole span of art production in Egypt. So far, however, the focus is mainly on painting, with some sculpture. Their inventory shows a general bias toward figurative paintings, rather than works which challenge viewers or the definition of what art is. They would like to expand further into photography, video, installation and even performance, but say this process depends on their own learning curve as well as that of the art scene — they haven’t found art photography they are convinced by yet.

As well as acting as a dealer for dozens of artists now — some of whom will become further involved in the project through teaching the upcoming ArtsMart workshops — they are more active in promoting their nine gallery artists’ work and in seeking opportunities for them elsewhere. These nine include Mowafy herself, as well as veteran Alexandrian painter Ibrahim El Tanbouli, and they all make primarily colorful, figurative, two-dimensional works.

Clients are both individual and corporate, and as intended include a lot of first-time art buyers. ArtsMart like the idea that they act as an access point to the market, and that these buyers will then go on to visit other galleries. They cultivate their relationships with both clients and artists, offering advice and talking through decisions. The personal aspect is important, and their contagious passion for their work is probably key to their success, alongside their careful attention to user-friendly details.

ArtsMart is constantly evolving and the founders are keen to hire more staff to begin creating a more solid company structure. They’re also eager to receive ideas, in keeping with their generally open, relaxed approach to the project. Promising to let them know if we could think of any suggestions, we left them to hang their next show, which opens this Friday, of landscape-inspired prints and paintings by Abdelwahab Abdelmohsen.

Read more about why Mada Masr is organizing a marketplace event here. 

All photos by Amir Makar.