Art will not cost a fortune anymore, you can now rent it from PixMyWall

Aditya Pisupati is a photography enthusiast. He has been on many expeditions with fellow photographers where they captured hundreds of uncommon shades and perspectives of life. If you browse through their collection, you’ll see some excellent work. But not many recognized the effort that went into capturing these pictures and most of their work remained unsold. Aditya often thought that photography was treated as an “unwanted stepchild of the art world” but found that this was not the case when he started talking to other artists involved in various art forms.

He pondered over why art is treated as something 'high-brow' and not a thing of common consumption. In July of 2012, PixMyWall was conceptualized with a core objective of - championing artists by providing them a platform to showcase their work to larger market, increase chances of selling their artwork faster and open up new streams of revenues for them. The want to demystify art, to make it easily accessible for all, to put it up on every wall where one can cherish it every day lead Aditya to leave his job with Cisco, where he was managing sales in the APAC markets.

Aditya started up PixMyWall with Chandini Harlalka and Padmaja Nagarur. Chandini is a Masters in Fine Arts and has over 10 years of experience in the art market. She has worked very closely with some of the best talent in the market. She is the chief curator and drives artist relations at PixMyWall. Padmaja joined PixMyWall after her stint with Paul Writer, a marketing consulting firm, as their lead consultant and now drives all the marketing efforts for PixMyWall

They offer a contemporary way of bringing the world of art into homes and offices without paying a fortune. Their Keep-Exchange-Buy model allows customers to subscribe to a package where they have an option to keep an artwork as long as they want, exchange it for another or buy it if they wish to. This model gives a chance to early collectors to try out various works before they decide which one to invest in. The model works best for hotels, hospitals, financial and educational institutions, corporate offices as they prefer changing the artwork periodically.

Traditionally, art has been consumed only by purchasing original artworks or limited reprints. If one were to purchase an artwork, the avenues included galleries, exhibitions, art festivals and art dealers. Subject to speculation, artworks are priced based on multiple factors like artist profile & popularity and art form and techniques employed to create a specific work.

Aditya says, “The art market was pegged at 750 Cr in 2012 in India but we believe that there is a tremendous potential waiting to be tapped. An encouraging trend is the massive inflow of capital and talent into the global online art industry that is driving transparency in customer service and pricing.”

Their target market includes retail, individual homes and businesses - hotel chains, corporates, hospitals and the builder community – to which they offer subscription, purchase and gifting options. They want individuals and businesses to experience limitless art and find inspiration in it and be the ambassadors of talented artists’ work. The online art market in India is still largely untapped and PixMyWall’s model presents a win-win situation for artists and art enthusiasts.

They want to create the largest art repository defined by number and variety of curated art works available through a single platform. In addition to the Keep-Exchange-Buy model, one can also purchase the artwork. With technology playing a critical role in opening up the content repository to partner with galleries and franchisees across the world, the future looks promising to PixMyWall team. Aditya says enthusiastically, “With tech inclusion, art consumers and/or collectors of Middle East will be able to experience traditional aboriginal art and those in Europe will be able to appreciate and have Mithila art up on their walls and we want to make it possible.”

Earlier this year, they also initiated talks with Artflute and discovered synergies in taking the combined entity to the market. Artflute has over 1,500 artists and 7,500 artworks making it one of India’s largest and trusted art marketplaces. They are in the process of signing up more artists, encouraging them to promote their work across both the platforms - PixMyWall and Artflute.

Want to experiment with some art work? Checkout PixMyWall and tell us what you think about them.