Online aarti
Fish Frenzy 2 by Neill Murphy - £350
Virtual art galleries which display and sell paintings online fascinate me. I have already posted in Serendipity 2 about Julian Merrow-Smith who paints in the Vaucluse and has an online gallery at Still Life, and a blog with daily paintings instead of words at Shifting Light.
Now On An Overgrown Path has put me back in touch with an old colleague from my IT days. Margaret Horrocks swapped AS400 programming for creating a superb online gallery of contemporary art called aarti.co.uk which she runs from her home on the Norfolk/Suffolk borders. Margaret tells me the name aarti was intended to be an acronym for Advertising Art on the Internet, but has the alternative meaning of "a little prayer" which most artists probably do when they exhibit their work. On her site Margaret sets out her 'manifesto' which should be shouted from the rooftops far beyond the art world.....
AARTI thinks that creative people are special. How much do we value articles that are unique - more than items which are manufactured or mass produced - no matter how much they cost? Yet many people who can create beautiful items often go unrewarded.
Many take up careers which are unrelated to their talent. Their artistic ability can only be expressed as a part time hobby. And we all loose out.
Nude drawing 8 by Sarah Thomas - £120
The images in this post (all of which are linked from Margaret's site) are just a selection of the works currently featured on aarti. Click on the name to be taken to a very interesting site, and perhaps you will be tempted to use that credit card. At On An Overgrown Path we always try before we recommend. Distant View of les Alpilles from Julian Merrow-Smith's online gallery is now in our living room; the online payment process and shippinng from France worked flawlessly.
Sculpture 10 by Michael Rawlinson - £5000
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