The Brick Lane Gallery — Attraction in London

ARTISTS!! AVOID AT ALL COSTS! Lazy. Unprofessional. Overpromised. Unorganised. These are just a few words that come to mind when having exhibited my artwork here.

As an artist who recently exhibited here, below are some of the things that the gallery 'promises to provide', but fails in each part at doing.

'We are dedicated to giving a platform to new and emerging artists'. - Yeah, by taking a considerable amount of their money and doing literally NOTHING with it to help push art sales. All they did was hang some work, no promotional material during the event posted on socials, no new or engaging social media content. When I arrived to see my paintings on the walls, the frames were covered in drill dust from them hanging my work, so little to no care with attention to detail.

'Promoting the exhibition on our website and social media pages, including Instagram'. - I had to email numerous times after the private opening event to receive photos from the night, so I could help push the event on my socials, by the time I finally got them, it had been over 2 weeks and I had collected my artwork from them already, as the event was over. What is the point in promotional material, if you have to use it after the event itself has finished... Especially, from the gallery's point of view, you are meant to be showcasing my work, not recycling the jpeg images of my artwork that I have already sent to you.

'We take 0% commission on all sales. Sell your work and receive 100% of the sale price.' - I was fortunate enough to sell 2 paintings. I had to prompt them as a reminder that the 30-day waiting period was coming, because after this experience with them I did not trust them, they clearly forgot that they needed to pay me and their email response implied that. A day after my prompt, the money magically appeared in my account.

'Providing professional graphics of the exhibition for your social media including stories - reels - posts.' - All they did to promote the event was share an image THAT I HAD ALREADY SENT THEM to their story. That is it! 3 clicks, that is all it takes to add an image to an Instagram story. No reels, no posts, no interviews with me for social media content from opening night, which I have seen them do before on other posts on their Instagram. Nothing. There is hardly any evidence that I even exhibited there on their socials. Lazy.

'Mailing out features over 40,000 subscribers, including collectors, press and curators.' - Where were they? I saw no press on opening night. Infact, everyone was stood outside not even looking at the artwork, as there were no windows, aircon or air circulation. Too hot and stuffy in a small gallery, to even admire the hard work we have done, and the money that we have paid, to be looked at.

'Preview night with a free bar to launch the exhibition. All artists are welcome to invite friends, family and contacts to the preview.' - If you are lucky enough to even get a glass from the small supply that they had, the white wine was served warm, you could even say hot. The 'brochure', if you can call it that, was just 2 pages of a word doc that had our artist blurbs. No creativity or effort put into it, not even any images of our work within it!! Clearly trying to save money on coloured ink!

These are all things that I was promised, alongside the other artists that I exhibited with, and I am extremely unimpressed! This was my first gallery experience and I received minimal effort. This gallery takes your money and puts no effort into selling/promoting your artwork. They already have your money, so why would they bother to push sales? AVOID...

8 reasons why you should not exhibit your work here:

From my experience exhbiting at the BL gallery.

As many, I got an E-mail saying how special my artworks were and that they would really like to exhibit them. I recognised that this was a mail not specifically or only written for me, but I still wanted to use the chance to exhibit in this city. The price shocked me, but I still did it because at that point I had already put my mind to do it.

1: As I arrived at the gallery, there were only a couple of students and as I entered, they looked at me in a really strange way, then telling me to just leave my artworks here. Not a very friendly welcome, but that's not the worst.

2: At the vernissage were barely any people, actually only friends of the students which were invited to, as I guess, make it look like as if there would be something going on. Beside from those, also the company of the other artists.

4: I was a total exception being able to sell one artwork (a super cheap one, though), out of around 30-40 that were exhibited. Of course I was happy to hear that it seemed like this was not that much of a rip off as I thought. But wait.

5: I visited the gallery once again acting as a normal visitor and as I entered I only got an annoyed look, not even a hello - what a friendly environment to expose the artworks you've been working hard on! Later on came a colleague and together they were going through instagram on their laptops - ah, so that's what it looks like when they send their friendly messages.

6: I asked about how it works with the payment for my artwork and got told I should go to the other gallery where the manager is. Got there and she friendly told me she would send me an e-mail in half an hour with all the details. The mail arrived one week later, and that only because I reminded her. With her excuse being she forgot.

7: I took some time filling in the required details of the e-mail and sent it back to her, then she told me it was necessary to write it all again but in a different format. This is just a detail, but i have paid a HUGE amount of money and they can't even do that thing for me? Honestly, this service is the worst I have experienced. What did I pay for? And no one can tell me it is for those few meters, because it is only for the people involved in this rip-off.

8: I sent it to them, then they told me it would take a maximum of 30 days. I live in an European country, just as the UK, so I was expecting the money to be on my account before that date. Now the best part: Today marks one and a half months later and I have not heard from the gallery nor got a single cent from them on my account.

Thank you Brick Lane Gallery for making the first experience of exhibiting so awful for a 19 year old who really had to scratch her money together from parents and grand parents to be able to do so. Thank you for, no, not even ripping off, but stealing from artists.

If you are thinking of doing an exhibition with them, I can not tell you what you should or shouldn't, but I would highly recomment you not to. Simply because such kind of mentality towards artists and their works should not be supported.

Best...

Recently I exhibited artwork for the Brick Lane's Abstract Art exhibition and I gotta say that the whole experience was amazing. I was approached via email, at first I was kinda suspisious and nervous, but through interaction with the gallery I felt like this was legit. The staff were very informative and straight forward in all their emails, making it super easy for me to understand, I also found their manner via email really pleasant and that none of my questions were ignored! When I first got to the gallery with my suitcase full of my works a member of staff approached me at the door, invited me in, helped me put my suitcase on a table and that was it, it was legit that easy! I didn't really need to do anything! I just came in and left my works with them, I wasn't sure if I would have to unwrap and unpack the works and help put them up or whatever, but nah I legit came dropped them off and left! Opening night was my favourite. I went into the gallery of which I dropped my works off, I was so nervous and excited to just see everything and also to see my works hung up. I thought I would go slow around the gallery and take my time to really take everything in. The gallery set up was amazing, everyone there looked so nice, the staff were friendly and really welcoming, and the wine they were serving just topped it off. The whole opening night was just so on point, people, place, atmosphere, everything just felt so right. Honestly I cannot fault anything, throughout my whole experience with the Brick Lane Gallery I was treated so well. Both the gallery and the staff are just gorgeous, cannot thank them enough for...