The shift away from sourcing and toward commissioning
Building a curated collection has traditionally meant sourcing -- visiting galleries, reviewing available stock, and selecting from what happens to exist at the time. That approach works when the collection's requirements are flexible. It works far less well when a curator has a specific palette, a specific scale, or a specific narrative thread that the collection needs to follow, and nothing on the market quite fits.
Commissioning custom abstract art directly from the artist solves that mismatch at the source. Instead of selecting the closest available option, the curator specifies the brief and the work is created to meet it.
What curators gain by commissioning directly
Working directly with the artist means the palette, scale and mood are agreed and signed off before the work exists, rather than assessed after the fact against a shortlist of available pieces. It also means transparent pricing -- no gallery markup layered onto the value of the work -- and a direct relationship with the person creating it, which matters when a collection needs to be built out over multiple pieces or over time.
For curators working across Australia's major CBDs -- Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, Hobart and Darwin -- commissioning directly also means the artist can be briefed on the market and audience the collection is being curated for, not just the physical specifications of the piece.
Abstract work suits this approach particularly well
Abstract art is especially well suited to direct commissioning because its value is carried by palette, scale and emotional register rather than by literal subject matter. A curator can specify the feeling a piece needs to create in a collection -- calm, bold, grounding, energising -- and trust the artist to interpret that intention, in a way that is much harder to brief for figurative work.
What this looks like in practice
A commission begins with the curatorial brief -- the palette direction, the scale required, and how the piece needs to sit alongside the rest of the collection. A palette and style proposal is developed and approved before any canvas is started. The finished work arrives professionally framed in a Tasmanian Oak frame, delivered free anywhere in Australia, ready to take its place in the collection.
Commission for your next collection
Custom abstract art from Leah Justyce starts from $3,500 AUD for a 100cm x 100cm original, framed and delivered free Australia-wide. See the full process on the custom abstract art page, and use the commission enquiry form to start your brief -- Leah responds within 48 hours.