About
Debut Contemporary is an innovative platform with a vibrant contemporary art gallery space in Notting Hill, West London with a mission to assist talented and ambitious artists interested and eager to turn their art practice into a successful career and a viable business. It acts as a launchpad for artists' careers, creating the ways forward to break into the London and international art markets through its extensive industry networks of collectors, gallerists, critics, auctioneers and other art professionals.
Debut Contemporary is the only professional development and career empowerment platform of its kind in the UK. Debut Artists benefit from a wealth of opportunities including weekly workshops (amongst others media training, branding, PR & marketing and artist resale right, intellectual property rights and copyright, how to successfully achieve gallery representation, sell art both online and offline, avhieve successful sponsorship deals, to name a few), access to a network of collectors, one on one mentoring sessions and the opportunities to exhibit at high profile events and gallery spaces.
Debut Contemporary has been labelled as a 'New Art Angel' by Quintessentially Magazine and 'One of 8 Art Businesses in the World Reshaping The Art Market Globally' by FAD Magazine. Debut Contemporary follows on from the success the founders Samir Ceric and Zoe Knight, husband and wife duo, achieved through the launch of Salon Contemporary and Wolf & Badger which earned them the industry titles such as ‘One of the UK’s Most Powerful Couples in Art & Fashion’ (The Times Magazines), ‘Kingmakers of Creative Talent’ (International Life Magazine), and ‘London’s Top Tastemakers’ (Time Out London), to name a few.
Philosophy
Artists have historically found it difficult to access gallery space and professional industry help to assist in pushing their careers in the right direction. Lack of professional development in the industry has had a devastating effect in the respect of the loss of creative talent for decades now. Debut Contemporary's key role is to change that as well as give the rising talent a chance to shine and get a necessary exposure within the right networks. Using this flexible platform designed to pass on the industry knowledge with the aim to increase a success rate of artists staying in business. It will also teach all participating artists how to look at their practice as business. Enabling then not only to live off their work and make some serious financial gains in the process.
Due to the recession and rising unemployment we believe it is more important than ever that these creatives are promoted and nurtured, and Debut Contemporary offers a sustainable solution to this problem. We will enable emerging, talented artists to showcase their art in a prime location and with a full service offering that removes all the difficulties of setting-up and running an art business, through professional workshops taught by successful industry professionals, and one on one mentoring sessions. Our simple and affordable all-inclusive licence fee allows talented artists to take their first step into the professional art environment without long-term commitments; artists maintain complete control over their creative licences, pricing (with our professional assistance) and profits (with 80% of the commission going straight to the artist). Debut Contemporary not only offers emerging artists an affordable opportunity to succeed in their creative careers, but also looks set to deliver a dynamic and stimulating gallery experience that has not previously been seen, in this particular format. A series of art performances in the gallery window will entice a wider audience to be part of the art world.