I recently discovered a new artist from One Kings Lane's (OKL) periodic "Emerging Artists" sale, which showcases framed prints of original works by some of "their favorite rising American artists"...My favorite from today's OKL offering is artist Teil Duncan, of Charleston, South Carolina (see three framed prints below). A link to her website is as follows...
http://www.teilduncan.com/
A description of this talented young artist from her current gallery, Redux Studios, in Charleston, South Carolina....
"Teil Duncan is an oil painter from Columbus, Georgia with a BA in painting from Auburn University. Her direct influences and inspirations are the people and places in which she is surrounded. The vibrant colors of Charleston and the energy it exudes is translated onto the canvas, portraying her own unique language through paint. Her central medium has consistently been oils and acrylics; however, her style is ever evolving and changing, from realism to non objective artwork. Teil has exhibited in various shows throughout Columbus, Auburn and Charleston and continues to paint in her new studio at Redux."
As someone who previously took a course in figure drawing, I understand and appreciate the challenges of this subject. As such, I am so intrigued by her ability to capture figure / color / light studies in a colorful mix of impressionistic geometric shapes. I did a little research and pulled a few of my favorites below (figure and beach studies) from her website (most of these have sold)...Particularly due to the fact that making a career out of the fine arts is no easy task (the quintessential "starving artist" conundrum), I love discovering and admiring new talented artists, as they are living my dream!
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| My FAVORITE of her beach scenes... |
Additionally, I am inspired by the following article about Teil Duncan from the Charleston City Paper by Erica Jackson Curran. I love the fact that she decided to go out on her own to market her work. Although it was very brief, I did a little stint in jewelry design (pre-kids) while we were living in Charlotte, North Carolina. I sold my work through local boutiques, community events and markets, and home shows. I completely understand the challenging balance of trying to sell your work through galleries or boutiques (great opportunity and exposure) while keeping the price point affordable and attractive, since these venues typically take 50% of the sale price. I am thrilled for artists today who have the luxury to sell their work directly through sites such as Etsy, so they can keep their prices reasonable and sell to a wider audience....Article provided below...
If you want to see Teil Duncan's paintings, don't bother looking in any Charleston galleries. You'll have to call her up or shoot her an email and make an appointment to stop by her Redux studio to see what she's been working on. Or you could just head online, where she sells most of her work. Her bright, bold paintings owe a debt to both the impressionists and the abstract expressionists — her scenes are filled with people depicted in angular brushstrokes in a rainbow of colors.
Because she's not currently represented by a gallery, Duncan doesn't get the kind of attention some local artists do, but she's plenty busy. By choosing not to hand over 50 percent of the profits from her work to a gallery (a pretty standard rate), she's taken the business end of the art world into her own hands, in effect expanding her reach worldwide.
Duncan is fairly new to this game, but she's playing it well. She's been artistic all of her life. She majored in art at Auburn University, and made money on the side by painting commissions after moving to Charleston. But she didn't realize she could make a career out of it until she discovered local abstract painter Sally King Benedict.
"I had kind of given up on being an artist as a career," Duncan says. "I didn't think it was possible in this economy. But then I saw her just killing it, and I just quit everything, quit all my jobs and decided to put all my eggs in that basket. I joined Redux and started painting full-time." That was two years ago this month.
Duncan tried going the gallery route for about a year, but soon got frustrated. "It went really well, but the pace of it was kind of slow," she says. "I don't want to bash the galleries, because I'm grateful for that experience, but when you have to up your prices, and they're only exposed to like 30 people a day, the chance of one out of 30 people spending a couple thousand dollars on a painting is kind of slim."
Looking for a more sustainable model and inspired by fellow Redux artist Lulie Wallace, Duncan took her work online and opened a shop on Big Cartel. She's only been selling online since March but already sounds like a pro.
"If you have a product that's affordable, and it's not thousands and thousands of dollars, and you get traffic of hundreds of people looking at your work each day, then the chances of selling a $300-$500 painting are pretty good," she says.
But how does one attract that all-important traffic? It's simple enough for Duncan, who emails her favorite bloggers when she finishes a new body of work. "A handful of them will feature me on their blog, and once that happens, it sends all the traffic to my website, and I can sell up to 30 paintings in a day."
Because of the higher demand, Duncan switched from oils to water-based paint so she could produce work more quickly and cheaply. There have been other benefits to working with water-based paint as well. "With the water-based paint, I feel like I've been able to learn so much more about color. It dries so quickly, within seconds, that if the color's not working, I can paint right over it. With oil paints, if it's not working, I have to wait like five days. It'll be interesting to see the process switching back to oils." She'll reserve the oil paintings for any galleries she might work with in the future, if she can find the right fit.
These days Duncan tends to work in series, and her most recent one focuses on vibrant, abstract beach and pool scenes. She snaps photos on her iPhone when she's out and about, then uses those photos to inspire a painting. She eventually abandons the photo altogether, abstracting the image and bringing in her own color palette.
"Whenever I'm sitting on the beach or in the park or really any public area where there are people interacting, there's something about it that intrigues me," Duncan says. "When I look down the beach and see all these colorful bathing suits, towels, umbrellas, bags, it's very visually stimulating for me."
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