Why we built the new Online Gallery

Dear artists,

We’re Vincent and Hilly-Anne, and this is the part where most companies would put a polished corporate photo. That’s not really us. We’d rather show you who’s actually behind Online Gallery — two people who care an unreasonable amount about giving artists a fair deal, and who still know how to have fun while doing it.

For years we watched talented people make beautiful work and then hand over a third of every sale — sometimes more — just to be seen. The art world can be generous, but it can also be a gate. And too often the person who made the work ends up with the smallest share of it, the least say over how it’s shown, and no way to reach the people who’d love it.

We built Online Gallery because we believe that’s backwards. You made the work. You should keep what it sells for. So we charge zero commission — when a collector buys from you, the money is yours. All of it.

But not taking a cut isn’t enough on its own. Artists also need a place that’s truly theirs. That’s why every artist here gets their own website, on their own address, that they control — not a profile buried three clicks deep inside someone else’s platform. Your page, your name, your rules. If you ever decide to leave, you take it with you.

A storefront only matters if people walk past it, though. So we put real, daily effort into bringing art lovers here: through our News section, artist spotlights and interviews, and honest guides to the exhibitions and museums worth visiting. When we write about you, we link straight back to your work and your page — so attention turns into visits, and visits turn into collectors.

The two of us split the work the way that plays to our strengths. Vincent lives in the product and the code — the speed of the pages, the tools to sell, the thousand small details that decide whether something feels like home or like a chore. Hilly-Anne looks after the people and the story — the artists we work with, the words we choose, and making sure this never turns into a cold machine that forgets there’s a human on both ends of every sale.

We won’t pretend it’s all been smooth. Building something you actually believe in is equal parts stubbornness and late nights. But we keep coming back to one simple test: does this help artists sell their work and keep more of it? If the answer is yes, we build it. If it only helps us, we don’t.

The new Online Gallery you’re looking at is the result of a lot of that quiet work: faster pages, a cleaner way to show your art, better selling tools, and small touches that simply make it feel good to use. It isn’t finished — it never really will be — but it’s ready for you.

So if you make art and you’ve been waiting for a place that puts you first, consider this our invitation. Come build your corner of it. We’ll be right here, probably arguing happily about a button colour, and genuinely glad you came.

Warmly,
Vincent & Hilly-Anne
Founders, Online Gallery