Art for art's sake (artists you've found)

[Ham]

Dunno how much interest there might be in this thread, but there may be others such as Mrs Ham & me who enjoy collecting art (note the small "a") in a small way - mostly £100 more or less from places we've been. Thought it might be nice to share as the hardest thing is sorting the wheat from the chaff, and in most tourist destinations there is an awful lot of chaff.

Made more complicated because tastes are so different, but hey, in for a penny and all that.

In St Petersburg in the middle of a street market just by the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood we came across Sergei Gerasmienko and bought one of his works, Leda & the Swan in tempura and oil on board. He appears to replicate his most popular works for tourists, nothing wring with that.

Here's one he prepared earlier, virtually identical


It's 45cm square and cost £50. Here's his facebook photo page, shows quite a lot of stuff. Happily I still like it a lot since we have got it home. BTW, he doesn't speak a word of English.

Any similar recommendations?

[tiermat]

I wish I could persuade Mrs T that art is worth having, rather than Art.

For instance, we visited an art gallery on Saturday.  Of all the Art on display, she preferred the ones that cost 4 figures.  The cheapest she liked was £595.  She has an gift certificate (from me) to the value of £350, which will just about cover the cost of one of the pair of originals she likes.

HAving said that both Mrs T and myself don't want to bother with prints, that's what IKEA/Athena is for, rahter we want originals (be they pastals, watercolours, oils or other medium.

Thre artists are front runners for the next piece to appear at THoFC:
Kerry Darlington (we already have one of her works and would like another).  She works in resin and he pictures are "Original Editions" so though each one looks like others in that run, there are subtle differences.
Ben Payne - He refuses to do prints, even though his publishing house keeps pushing him to, so all his works are originals, in watercolour.
Julie Anne Scott - Again she only does originals, in oil this time.

Having said that, we have a load of originals "in the style of" in the attic, requiring framing, and I am looking forward to visiting some non-tourist Souks next week to find good examples of North African art for the house.

ETA: FWIW the Kerry DArlington that we do have, which cost me £895 about 3 years ago has appreciated in value already.  The prints we have, even the ltd editions, haven't.

[Ham]

We do pay more for stuff bought in the UK, but then you have more chance of seeing it objectively than when you are on holiday, although I don't think we've spent more than £700 on any single painting. As it is house insurance renewal time I was looking about to see current values. Just about everything we have bought looks to have appreciated, one of Paul Elwick's apparently tenfold (=I  believe that when I see it).