Our mission
A place for art made by people.
The internet is filling up with images nobody made. Open Studio is a marketplace where every piece has a person behind it - a hand, a studio, a practice - and where you can meet them.
No generated work. None.
Nothing sold here is made by a model. Not the paintings, not the prints, not the “concept” behind a piece. Artists may use software the way they use a camera or a press - as a tool in their own hands - but a prompt is not a practice, and a collection that came out of one has no place here.
Every seller is vetted by working artists.
Anyone can join, write, and build a store. Selling is different. To sell, an artist applies with their collection - photos of the work, what it is, what it is made with, and where they make it - and a member of our review panel with expertise in that medium reads it. The panel is made up of practising artists, not moderators. Meet the people who review applications.
- Cohesive. A body of work, not a grab-bag. The pieces belong together and to the person who made them.
- Original. Their own. Not traced, not lifted, not a variation on someone else’s catalogue.
- Human-made. Made by the applicant, with their hands and their tools. A reviewer who knows the medium can tell.
- Not drop-shipped. No print-on-demand catalogues, no reselling, no stock designs on blank goods. The artist makes what they sell, or has it made under their own direction.
Popularity is not a criterion.
A review never asks how many followers someone has or how much they have sold. A first collection from a studio nobody has heard of is judged the same way as an established one: is it cohesive, original, and made by the person applying. Nothing else.
What that gets you.
As a buyer: the certainty that the thing on your wall was made by the person whose name is on it, and a way to talk to them. As an artist: a room where your work is not competing with an infinite supply of nothing.