Arts Artists Artwork: A New Place to Buy Art Online

Arts Artists Artwork is a fairly new platform to buy art online in 2020 but has been around since 2009. The early years of Arts Artists Artwork were focused solely on building a community with social media and promoting artists from all over the world to help them grow their social media presence. The primary focus early on was with Facebook, before Instagram even became a contender. The Arts Artists Artwork business page on Facebook now boasts a following of more than 1.6 million fans. It wasn’t until 2018 that Arts Artists Artwork shifted gears and developed a website platform to host artists as vendors with their own online shop to sell their artwork, much as they might do on the Etsy platform. With Arts Artists Artwork focused solely on artists, buyers of artwork will find it much easier to browse the artwork available online without having to sift through a lot of other types of crafts and supplies.

When you visit the Art Store to buy art online with Arts Artists Artwork, you’ll find a variety of ways to discover artwork. On a desktop/laptop computer you’ll find a Filter tool on the right side of your screen which allows you to filter out irrelevant artworks based upon your price range, color preferences, categories and styles. On a mobile device, the Filter is found at the top left under the header banner. You can also sort the listing from Price: Low to High or High to Low, Popularity, Average Rating, or Newness. This gives you a variety of options to choose from as you browse through the art store and artwork listings.

You can also visit the Artists page and underneath the Featured Artists at the top of the page, you’ll find again a Filter tool which allows you to filter out the artists based upon Artwork Categories and Styles so you can focus in on the artists whose artworks you might be interested in purchasing. Without using the filtering tool, you’ll find the artists are listed in an order based upon their registration date on the website. Beneath each artist’s name you can see what country they’re based in. The website allows artists to limit to what geographical region they’re willing to ship their artwork to, thus limiting sales to some regions. You will discover this on the shopping cart page if you click Buy on a particular artwork.

Visiting an artists profile, you’ll see their Portfolio (web shop), their Bio and their Blog if they’ve been doing any blogging on the website. By their profile picture, you’ll also see a Contact button/link that allows you to message the artist directly with the website’s messaging system. You will need to register an account and login to complete the task of messaging the artist. Your email address will not be used for any marketing purposes when you register to communicate with the artist. If you do want to receive the Arts Artists Artwork monthly newsletter, you’ll have to sign up for that further down the page where it says First Name, Last Name, Email. Or you can use the Stay in Touch menu button found at the top right of the web page when viewed with a Desktop or Laptop computer. I regret this menu item cannot be found on a mobile device.

You will notice some artists’ artworks listed in their web shop or profile will not list prices or show any Buy button by their artworks. This is a choice by some artists who are bound by gallery representation to not sell their work with any other gallery or vendor. In Arts Artists Artwork’s case, artists are offered the opportunity to have an online presence by displaying a limited portfolio of their work for an annual membership fee. Interested buyers are encouraged to use the Contact feature on the artist’s profile to contact them about purchasing their work or learning more about them and where their art may be purchased. 

The Artwork page of the website will list all artworks, those that are able to be purchased on the website and the artworks that are simply there as part of a portfolio. If you visit the Art Store page, you’ll find only the artwork listed that is available to be purchased directly from the artist on the website.

It’s important to mention that Arts Artists Artwork to Buy Art is run by artists and built by artists. Thus, it is seen as an artists’ collective initiative rather than a normal gallery operation. Galleries will keep 30% to 50% of an artist’s selling price for artwork that is sold. On some online platforms, the gallery will often hold an online sale to promote more sales without even consulting the artists. And when a piece does sell, the gallery will still take their commission rate based upon the original price, not the sale price, thus lowering the income the artist makes. At Arts Artists Artwork, this will never happen. Each artist is responsible for their own regular price and when they choose to mark items on sale. And Arts Artists Artwork will take their 15% commission based on the actual selling price, not the original listing price. The artist earns more of their well deserved profit when selling artwork on Arts Artists Artwork. That’s a big difference between them and other online galleries and why you should consider buying artwork from their online selling platform.