The Art Business

In this episode David Bellingham talks with abstract and conceptual painter Lara Julian at her exhibition on 100 Kenston High Street. Lara — born in Siberia, trained in international relations and banking before retraining at the School of Visual Arts (New York) and the Slade (London) — describes her path from finance to a sustained painting practice and her family art background.

The conversation explores Lara’s working methods (long vertical brushstrokes built over months or years, often 50–60 layered passages, grounded in the Munsell colour system), her art-historical references (Titian, Rothko, Kandinsky), recent shows (Bonhams, Saatchi dialogues, Avicyn Gallery, Gallery 8, Zebra 1) and notable sales and speaking engagements. You’ll hear close looking at key works — Nimbus Petition, Unfolding Expansion, Velvet Hours, Fractal — and how texture, rhythm and color coding shape her pieces.

They also discuss the business of being an artist: how banking taught discipline and cataloguing, studio economics and pricing for long-term works, selling to corporate and private collectors, exhibiting beyond the white cube, digital/video and AI experiments, and practical advice for dealers, advisors and students about nurturing an artist’s long-term strategy rather than chasing trends.

Welcome back to the Art Business Podcast. In this episode host and guest Mazdak Sanii, founder and CEO of Avant Arte, discuss the decade-long journey of building a major contemporary art platform that has generated over $150 million in revenue and engaged more than 4 million collectors worldwide. Mazdak explains how his early M&A training at Rothschild shaped his leadership and soft skills, and how mentorship and recruiting the right people have been critical to scaling the business.

Topics covered include Avant Arte’s operational response to the 2022 market downturn, the company’s time-limited edition model, pricing strategy, and the decision to acquire Make-Ready, now the world’s largest fine art printing studio, to secure supply-chain quality and deepen relationships with artists. Mazdak also discusses how Avant Arte funds projects, works with artists and galleries on pricing and edition sizing, and fosters long-term artist partnerships.

The conversation explores Mazdak’s role as a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, advising on digital and commercial strategies, and how museums can engage younger donors and diversify income streams. He reflects on governance lessons from nonprofit boards, the value of emotional intelligence in leadership, and global opportunities for expanding collector bases in regions like Latin America, Greater China, Japan, and South Korea.

Expect practical insights on financing, hiring, operating a creative business at scale, and the intersection of craft, commerce, and cultural stewardship; plus anecdotes about classical music, mentorship, and the philosophy behind building a more accessible collecting ecosystem.

Links:

https://avantarte.com/

https://makereadyeditions.com/

 

music

‘Baby, I Miss The Internet’ (Rama, Rama, Rama) 

by TOT TAYLOR

is used by kind permission of the artist

©Tot Taylor/Songmatic Music (2020)

How should artists price their work, earn royalties and build sustainable creative businesses? In this episode of The Art Business Podcast, David Bellingham talks to artist, author and Artonomics founder Halim Flowers about pricing art, financial literacy, intellectual property and building multiple revenue streams.

Halim transformed 22 years of incarceration and self-education into an international creative practice. He discusses his journey from self-publishing and street entrepreneurship to working with galleries, Warner Brothers, institutional collectors and public projects.

Topics include:

• How artists can price their work and understand their financial value
• Budgeting and building multiple revenue streams
• Artist resale royalties and intellectual-property protection
• Building intergenerational value from creative work
• Blockchain and tokenisation
• Using AI as a business tool for artists
• Measuring cultural value and impact
• Community-building and ethical for-profit models
• Translating art into education, curriculum and commercial projects

Halim also discusses the Artonomics Cultural Capital Index and his approach to using data and technology to demonstrate cultural value and impact.

Key takeaways: Treat your creative practice as a business; diversify income; protect your intellectual property; use technology and data intelligently; and build communities that can extend the impact and value of artistic work.

Links:

https://www.art-o-nomics.com/

https://www.instagram.com/halimflowers/

https://www.halim-flowers.com/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/afdhelaziz/2025/12/05/how-halim-flowers-turns-art-into-weapons-of-mass-construction/

https://www.obama.org/programs/leaders/usa/2025-2026/halim-a-flowers/

 

music

‘Baby, I Miss The Internet’ (Rama, Rama, Rama) 

by TOT TAYLOR

is used by kind permission of the artist

©Tot Taylor/Songmatic Music (2020)

David Bellingham interviews Ricardo Gonzales, founder of Art Collector IQ, about building AI tools for the art market. They discuss the origin of the project, the data and technical challenges of cleaning and standardizing auction records, and how AI models (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and others) are combined to produce valuations, artist dashboards, weekly market briefs, and provenance checks.

The episode covers the suite of tools Ricardo has developed—including Art Collector IQ, ArtCheck, ArtGallery IQ, the Cultural Signal, and an iOS app that scans paintings for on-the-spot valuations—explaining how each tool works and who uses them (collectors, galleries, advisors, and researchers). They also explore legal and ethical considerations like hammer prices vs. buyer’s premiums, gaps in provenance (including Nazi-era concerns), and the need for human judgment alongside AI outputs.

Listeners will hear case examples, practical workflow descriptions, and tips for students and professionals on using AI responsibly in art business research and valuation.

Links:

https://www.artcollectoriq.com/

https://www.instagram.com/artcollector_iq/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/art-collector-iq/posts/?feedView=all

 

music

‘Baby, I Miss The Internet’ (Rama, Rama, Rama) 

by TOT TAYLOR

is used by kind permission of the artist

©Tot Taylor/Songmatic Music (2020)

Host Dr David Bellingham, Programme Director of the MA Art Business, Sotheby's Institute of Art, London, speaks with independent London curator and writer Maria Hinel about building a curatorial career outside commercial institutions and the philosophical threads that shape her exhibitions. They discuss her training (UCL, Courtauld), early work at Skarstedt Gallery, and independent projects at spaces including General Assembly, Shtager & Shch and Hypha Studios.

The episode covers recurring themes in Hinel's practice: the relations between the human and the non-human; language; identity; gender; temporality; ecology and the agency of animals. They explore how these ideas informed exhibitions such as Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Timescapes, Carbon, Carbon Everywhere and The Middle Voice. Artists referenced include Susan Eyre, Amalia Pica & Rafael Ortega, Francis Alÿs, Jochen Lempert, Anne Marie Maes, Kat Lyons, Claudia Losi and Alina Zamanova.

Key points: the dialogic process between curator and artist; staging multi-media shows across project spaces; making invisible forces (cosmic rays, magnetic vision) and animal perspectives visible; ethical and political questions around animal personhood, activism and visibility; and upcoming projects and ambitions, including a broader focus on contemporary Ukrainian art.

Official / profile pages

Website: mariahinel.com

Hypha Studios bio: hyphastudios.com/maria-hinel-2-2/

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/4b7b98b9/

Instagram: @mariahinel

ArtRabbit curator profile: artrabbit.com/people/maria-hinel/curator

Exhibitions (in episode order)

Timescapes (Shtager & Shch, 2023) — covered on her FAD Magazine tag page

The Middle Voice (Shtager & Shch, 2024) — listed on ArtRabbit

Carbon, Carbon Everywhere (Hypha HQ, 2025) — artplugged.co.uk write-up

The Pleasure of Misuse (Royal Society of Sculptors, 2025) — her own page or the institution's page

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (Hypha Gallery 1, 2026) — artplugged.co.uk write-up

 

music

‘Baby, I Miss The Internet’ (Rama, Rama, Rama) 

by TOT TAYLOR

is used by kind permission of the artist

©Tot Taylor/Songmatic Music (2020)