Getting work into galleries

How do I get work into galleries when they only are prepared to see emailed images and not the real work?

Reason galleries don’t want to see you one to one is

a)      time involved – much faster to scan through an email and see if the work may be in the genre you are looking for and some galleries get 20+ artists a week. At 30 minutes a person that’s an extra day and a half per week to their workload.

b)      It’s easier emotionally to say no in an email than face to face. Is less personal.

It’s just like the writing world where books are rejected with only a brief synopsis having been read and not the actual book.

Tends to be that if one gallery who is respected has your work, then others are more receptive valuing the other galleries choice.

So the key is to crack the first respected gallery.

Dangling a carrot such as: ‘To date in my private capacity I have sold xx works, so I know there is a market out there for my work…’ may be tempting for a gallery to look further (provided of course that you have sold an impressive amount of work independently.

Try a different approach so your email stands out.

I got “The girl who bites her nails and the man who is always late” published in the UK with an opening line: “Have you ever bitten your nails? Procrastinated? Etc What does it say about you as a person? ” I figured that the person reading the email would have had one of these habits mentioned and being human would be interested in finding out more about themselves. It worked!

You’re creative so think up a fresh approach that will intrigue/astound them. It may not work every time but at least you’ll stand out from all the “Hi my name is Susan and I‘m an artist and here are some examples of my work… yawn.”

Failing stalking the owners, (not recommended) that’s about the best advice I can offer.