Let's talk about exhibitions and gallery representation.
For many emerging artists, gallery representation is often held up as the marker of success. It can feel like the moment everything begins to happen, and that once represented, exhibitions arrive, collectors follow, and the practical burden of building a career is somehow lifted. For so many years I felt that if I didn't have a gallery representing me, it meant I wasn't a successful artist. However, I was recently told unequivocally by a prominent gallery professional, a senior curator at Tate in London, that this is absolutely not true.
It's a pity that it took someone in her position to give me that reassurance, but the more her words have sat with me, the more they've shifted some of the emotional weight I've previously tied to gallery representation. And it is very freeing.
I would like other artists to experience that same sense of freedom, and hopefully release some of the tensions they may feel surrounding their own careers and being picked up by a gallery. That's not to say that gallery representation isn't highly valuable. It is! It's just not the only means of building a successful career as an artist.
During our conversation, the curator spoke about how gallery representation is not the only route to a successful career, and that many artists build significant, sustainable practices through a combination of opportunities, relationships and self-initiated projects.
I've just deinstalled my second independently organised solo exhibition, A Quiet Dichotomy, here in Glasgow, without the support of a representing gallery, funding body or professional exhibition team. And it is not easy to juggle all the varying tasks required to make an exhibition happen, to know how to go about them and ultimately pull everything off alone, especially whilst balancing other work and everyday life. Having gallery representation doesn't just mean splitting your sales profits. It can mean having support with pricing, curation, shipping, production costs, marketing, sales administration, documentation and so much more. Galleries can offer an enormous amount to an artist, whereas without that support, all of these responsibilities, particularly when you're self-funding, fall entirely on you. Although I will say, organising my second exhibition was considerably easier than the first, two years earlier.
In 2024, quite serendipitously, I discovered through a fellow graduate from the Royal College of Art that some independent galleries offer their spaces for artists to hire. I had been wondering how another artist had managed to secure a solo exhibition so quickly after leaving art school, and eventually learned that the gallery was a space available for independent hire. Granted, you still needed to submit a proposal, but the arrangement was quite different from being selected for an exhibition through a gallery's own programme. The venue was being paid to provide the space, and the artist was responsible for organising the exhibition.
It seems incredibly obvious to me now, but at the time I hadn't really thought seriously about the fact that, as an artist, you have the authority to initiate your own exhibitions, independently of gallery representation. For years, I had believed that exhibitions could only happen through gallery invitations or, at the very least, successful applications to open calls. But that simply isn't the case. Of course, it's harder to gather your own audience, and there are financial responsibilities to consider. But discovering that I could approach a venue myself and propose an exhibition was something of a revelation. And it's something I would absolutely encourage other artists to consider. Even if you are fortunate enough to secure gallery representation early in your career, I would argue that there's enormous value in organising an exhibition yourself at some point. It can teach you a lot!
So, I set about putting the steps in place to secure an exhibition in the space. I began by writing to the venue, followed by preparing a proposal with images of my work, choosing my preferred dates and signing a contract before paying the deposit. For the first time in my career, I had a solo exhibition lined up and a deadline. It gave me a razor-sharp focus for the following six months: to complete a new body of work, apply for grants and figure out everything else along the way. Because although I had attended countless exhibitions over the years, I actually didn't know the first thing about organising one from start to finish.
There were just so many things to consider, from physical and digital invitations to photography, refreshments, transport, the exhibition title and text, wall labels, brochures, gallery maps, marketing and press. I didn't know how to do most of these things, but all I knew was that I was finally making this happen for myself. For the following five months, I set about completing the artwork whilst simultaneously learning how to organise an exhibition. It was a considerable undertaking, and there were plenty of things I would do differently now. But there was also something enormously satisfying about having the freedom to make decisions about how my work would be presented, and knowing that I had created the opportunity myself.
And when I came to organise A Quiet Dichotomy in Glasgow two years later, I realised just how much I had learned from that first experience. There were still challenges, of course, but I had a much clearer understanding of what needed to happen, when to begin preparing, and how to approach the many different responsibilities involved.
Most importantly, I no longer felt that I needed to wait for someone else to give me permission to exhibit my work, and I found the experience much more enjoyable than anticipated! It took much of the fear out of the process and made me realise that we can steer our own ships forward. Gallery representation may well be something we aspire towards, but we don't have to put our careers on hold while we wait for it.
We can begin creating opportunities for ourselves right now.
