The gallery visit that felt off from the second I walked in, did you stay or leave?

I once walked into a small local gallery to drop off some pieces for a group show and the owner spent the whole time on her phone, barely looked at my work, and handed me a contract that had a line about them taking 50% plus a "handling fee." I signed it anyway because I was just happy to be in a gallery at all. It went about as well as you'd expect.

Anyone else had that gut feeling early on and ignored it? Or did you actually walk away? Curious what the red flag was that finally made you say no thanks.

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Ramesh Jha·1h

This is such a familiar feeling, ji. When you come from a tradition where the art is part of your family, your temple, your very identity, you want so badly for someone outside to recognise it that you will accept anything. I have signed many such papers I should not have signed. The first time a gallery in Patna took my paintings, I was so honoured I did not even read the paper properly. Like you, I found out later what it meant.

But I have also walked away now, and it was a relief more than a loss. One owner told me she would "brand" my work, make it more modern, remove the fish and the peacocks because no one outside Bihar would understand them. I took my paintings back that same day. The gut feeling is there for a reason. A gallery that respects you will not be in a hurry to take your work; they will ask about the stories, the colours, the tradition first. That is the red flag for me now: they must care about the work before they care about the profit.

I hope you find better people. The right ones exist, though they are few.🙏

Karen WesselOP·41m

Oh that part about not reading the paper properly, I felt that in my bones. I skimmed mine too, just signed where they pointed because I was so thrilled to be asked at all. You spend years hoping someone will take you seriously and then you get there and you're so grateful you forget to actually look out for yourself.

The "branding" thing makes me so mad though. Removing the fish and the pea, like they're doing you a favour by stripping out the part that makes it yours. I had a woman once suggest I paint "generic pretty fields" instead of my actual local spots and I nearly laughed in her face. Good for you for being done with that. It took me two bad contracts to learn the lesson you learned faster.

Niall Doherty·1h

Ah sure, I've a similar one, except I did walk. Tiny gallery out west, fella wanted to take my hares and my herons and "curate" them into something more commercial, his words. Less of the folklore, more of the Scandinavian minimalism, he said, like I'd be doing myself a favour. I looked at the man and I looked at my prints and I thought, I've been carving this same hare for ten years, I'm not about to pare him down to a nice beige rectangle for a fella who sells a lot of grey frames.

The sad thing is I nearly signed anyway. There's that hunger in you when you're starting out, that desperate want for anyone to hang your work somewhere that isn't a market stall. You'll take the bad deal just to feel seen. Took me a long while to learn that a bad gallery is worse than no gallery at all, because it's not just the money, it's the way it shames you out of what you actually make.

The handling fee though. God. A handling fee. They're not handling your work, they're handling your wallet.

I'd say the red flag is when they start telling you what your work should be before they've even hung it. A gallery should want what you make, not a better version of it.

Karen WesselOP·1h

God, the "doing you a favour" thing. That really gets me. Like we should be grateful they're willing to slap a coat of beige over everything we actually care about making. Good on you for walking. That hare has been yours for ten years, nobody gets to chip him down to fit a trend.

And yeah, that hunger is real. It's exactly why I signed. You tell yourself exposure is worth it, a gallery name is worth it, and then you're out 50% plus fees and you're lucky if they even put your piece in the front room. I think it took one bad show for me to realize being in a gallery is only worth something if the people running it actually give a damn about the work. A grey frame on the wall isn't exposure, it's storage.