Hello dear readers and subscribers.
Almost every single artist has seen them and even considered using them.
Art mockups.
These apps that enable you to present your art in an interior or in an exhibition setting in just a matter of clicks.
These apps might come with some hefty subscription fees.
However, they promise that it will help you sell them more easily and make you look more professional.
But is that really true?
I have been approached on numerous occasions by, for instance, the smartest app to promote this, and they are willing to pay a lot for it.
However, the mock-up only has its function for artists who approach their work as a decorative good, who want to sell in a very transactional manner their art.
And in that role, in that capacity, the mock-up can work.
It can give a sense of scale of how the artwork functions as decoration in an interior setting, how it looks in a dining room above a couch.
So, from this perspective, if you are a decorative artist who is predominantly focusing on selling their work directly from the studio through, for instance, an e-commerce webshop then yes, you can consider using them.
However, if you are an artist who is looking to exhibit their work and enter the contemporary art world, then using these mockups is actually very, very counterproductive.
And in this video, we'll explain why that is, what you can do instead.
And also we have prepared a series of templates create professional art mockups, because they are also being used by some leading art galleries, for instance,
So let's dive in.
So why does the art world have a problem with these interior setting mockups that all these apps seem to provide?
Well, first and foremost, when it comes to the role of the artwork, it kind of reduces it to being something decorative.
Whereas in the art world, art is not intended as decoration.
It can be purchased by a collector who wants to live with it and therefore become part of an interior.
But in the first place, it is created to be an artwork.
So if we have a look at all the big galleries, the David Werner's Gagosian Space you'll never see them present the art as decoration.
The only way they will present it is either a focused image of it or in an exhibition context, in an artistic context, because that is the context of the function of the artwork.
It's an artwork and it should be seen as an artwork and not decoration.
Furthermore, there's also something else going on here.
A lot of artists who are not able to exhibit their art because they haven't had any opportunities yet, or they do not have a nice studio, or they do not have had any clients with a nice home.
Because they are not able to have those occasions to take real pictures, they resort to these mock-ups and therefore the majority of quote-unquote unsuccessful artists are using them and therefore, if you also use it intuitively, you are being associated with that group of artists.
It does not give the appearance of a successful artist sometimes.
These apps to create mock-ups will also give you the opportunity to create a mock-up in which your art is being displayed in a museum or a gallery.
However, most often these mock-ups do not really look like the spaces we have in the art world, most likely because the developers of those apps haven't visited a lot of them.
They're also very artificial.
You can clearly see that they are a mock-up and, even more problematic, the mock-ups that they present on an angle.
Here the app is actually taking care of how the edges are being finished, meaning that the app is completing a part, an integral part, of the artwork.
This is even worse when they are adding frames to it, because then they are presenting frames that aren't actually there in the art world, which is not a very sincere and genuine manner to present your art.
And these details for some, but these details matter, especially in the professional art world.
And rightfully so, in my opinion.
An artwork, even if it's a painting or a drawing or a print, is not just an image.
It is an object and you want to present that object as it is to either the client or potential business partners.
But it is completely natural that we're looking for a way to present our art beyond just taking a photograph of our artwork.
And it is becoming more and more important to have those images to show, to give a sense of scale and how you would experience these works in real life, as we are consuming more and more art digitally, through social media and on our websites even more, I think in today's era the images are almost as important as the artworks, and whereas that does not mean that we have to agree with this being a good thing or not, it is a reality that one must accept and you'll see that artists who really take care of documenting their work professionally or having very, very nice exhibition views are the ones that are more likely to be picked up by galleries, have more followers on social media, etc.
So this is not only a game of appearances and trying to show off that you are more established than you actually are.
It is also giving your art the opportunity to prosper, to making sure people are looking at it with the right eyes, that they are taking your work seriously, and the setting in which you present it, and therefore also the image in which you present the artwork, can do just that.
It also kind of communicates what your standards are.
Is it an image of your artwork and slightly tilted or not hanging straight or badly cropped or in a very messy environment or standing on the floor?
Then you're not communicating this perhaps the same standards as the galleries and clients you want to work with.
So these things matter.
Therefore, I cannot stress enough how important it is, if you have a good occasion to photograph your art in an exhibition context, for instance when you're having a show, do it.
It's very, very important and try to make it look as the installation views of the big galleries, meaning the artworks are not hung on strings or cords, that the lighting is not too warm, for instance, preferably a wooden or gray concrete floor, etc.
But definitely do it when you have the chance, because you can use them for your submissions, for your website, for instance, when you're doing open calls, art opportunities.
If you place these pictures in your portfolio, this is a way to really stand out.
I have also been in a jury panel and you're seeing a lot of images and the bad ones are not considered, whereas the good ones with artists that have these nice spaces as well, instantly it's more appealing.
So definitely play that game.
Now, does this mean that if you do not have the exhibition spaces, that there is nothing you can do?
That is not true.
The mock-ups are also being used by the leading art galleries.
Illustrated, for instance, by this particular mock-up, created by the Paris Art Gallery simul, of a painting by the very talented American artist, Drew Dodge.
In a nutshell, there are three strategies when it comes to mock-ups that are being used and accepted by the high-end art world, and then we're going to show how you can implement those strategies as well.
First and foremost, it is the what i would call the focused context image, which is simply the artwork mocked up on a white wall, as if it's being presented in this exhibition context, but very focused.
The second format is very similar, but simply zoomed out a little bit, which would be more a focused exhibition context image.
So we're seeing the exhibition spaces, floor and the wall, which gives you a bit more a sense of the scale of the artwork.
And then thirdly, we also have the viewer exhibition context image, as if the work is being presented in an exhibition and a viewer is looking at it once more.
This is great um, to kind of have this sense of scale, but also the experience of it, and it's an archetype that is very, very popular.
Please note that to create these mock-ups, first you need good photographs of your images, And this is also something that we have dedicated a very extensive article and tutorial for, to teach you how you can create high quality photographs just with your phone and a free editing software.
And it's also that free editing software that I recommend using to create these mockups Photoscape X.
Photoshop is the best and a bit more advanced, but once more, it comes at a hefty price, hence offering this free alternative.
So if you find images, template images of a clean white wall, of a clean white wall with a grey floor, and of a clean white wall, a grey floor and a viewer looking at that wall, you can actually create these mock-ups for your artworks with not that much of effort in Photoscape X.
We have actually prepared these images as templates.
So we have created them from scratch.
So as soon as you purchase them, you can use them, edit them, commercially use them.
And as always, we offer this at the lowest price possible, the price of a coffee.
So I'll link to it in the description below and in the pinned comment where you can find them, which also includes a complete video guide on how to use Photoscape and how to make it as realistic as possible.
I also give a bit more tips, for instance, when you have works that are framed, or if you would have works that are irregularly shaped, because then it's very difficult sometimes to create this, but we can solve this very easily with a background remover and, once more, these templates.
By doing so, by documenting your work in this way, you can now also create different posts or different images for the same artwork, which is, for instance, very important if you want to post more frequently on instagram or on social media, which is important to be visible.
You can share a detail of an artwork, you can share a cropped version of the artwork, you can share the artwork on the wall.
You can share the artwork on the wall with the floor and you can share the artwork on the wall with the floor and a viewer looking at it.
That's five posts for a single artwork.
So if you would post twice a week, then with 20 artworks, you can post twice a week for an entire year.
So this is, in my opinion, the best, the better alternative.
Definitely do not use those apps that come with a hefty subscription fees if you're pursuing a career in the high-end, professional contemporary art world.
Instead, opt for these strategies to optimize your chances for success, to have make a better impression with your portfolio, for applications, for submissions on instagram, etc.
As mentioned earlier, I will link to the complete article where I discuss these things a bit more extensively, and also to the templates to those pictures and that video guide that I have prepared for you.
I will link to it in the description below and in the pinned comment.
And if you're looking for more career advice for artists, for the contemporary art world, then i strongly recommend having a look at our overview page with advice for artists or have a look at our other tools.
We also have a tool bundle with, i think, in total now 13 different tools for artists to professionalize your profile to be ready to be in business.
Thank you so much for tuning in today.
Feel free to watch our video on how galleries are finding artists in 2025 next.
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Bye.
