07 Feb International Commissions of a Mural Artist
Whilst being based in London UK where the majority of my murals are painted I have been fortunate enough to be commissioned in more than 7 different countries some of which I have spent many months working in.
Most of these mural and trompe l’oeil commissions start with contacts I have made in the UK or clients that have found me on searches on the internet. From those initial contacts the commissions can grow as the work that is done abroad is seen and the word spreads.
I was contacted a number of years ago by an assistant of a gentleman in Turkey who had built a new house and was looking for a muralist/decorative artist to do various rooms in his house in Istanbul with a variety of faux finishes and trompe l’oeil.
The potential client invited several UK based artists to visit and interviewed them with the aim of selecting one to do the work, it included paying for flights and accommodation.
I was always interested in travelling and had always wanted to work in Istanbul and made my quotation as competitive as possible, it resulted in my being successful in winning the commission but it also meant having to work extra hard in making it pay, especially as I had a team of 4 decorative artists working with me to complete the work.
The other challenge whilst painting murals, trompe l’oeil and decorative art in a foreign country is the logistics of obtaining the variety of materials needed especially if working in countries outside the EU. For example not many of the materials I needed including gold leaf, varnishes, specialist glazes and glues had to be imported mostly in our luggage or face a wait of weeks in customs.
Having got around all these challenges which also included the language and only a small profit I reaped the reward of meeting the cousin of the client who also was completing his house in the same compound. His commission was 4 times the size and included more artistic decorative work as well as a variety of trompe l’oeil and murals and half a kilometre of linear gold leaf work. The project took over a year with up to 7 artists working 6 days a week covering over 3000 square metres of walls with a variety of artwork and specialist effects, it was finished one day before the deadline and resulted in getting 3 more commissions in Istanbul which kept us busy for the next couple of years.
In my next blog I will talk about my latest commission which started with an enquiry in London and ended in a commission in California.
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