Sydney Art Fairs 2015
By Michael Young
With three art fairs last week in Sydney, the art-buying public were well catered for, with works selling at various price points, but mainly focused below AUD 100,000 (USD 71,000). Held every two years, Sydney Contemporary art fair, which is now in its second iteration, faced off against the inaugural The Other Art Fair (TOAF), which showcased young artists who are without gallery representation, and Spring 1883, a hotel-based fair in Melbourne that was started last year by the local Station Gallery, Neon Parc and Sarah Scout Presents.
The best seller at Sydney Contemporary seemed to have been mid-career Australian artist Ben Quilty. By the end of the day on the fair's opening, Quilty’s Brisbane gallerist Jan Murphy had sold all of his thickly painted canvases, which flirt with abstraction while remaining firmly anchored in the figurative. “It is his first solo show in six years,” Murphy told ArtAsiaPacfic. With six pieces priced individually at AUD 60,000 (USD 43,000) and three at AUD 40,000 (USD 28,000) the work flew off the shelves.
