How to show your work the way you want it seen.

1Before you start

Have these to hand and the whole thing takes about five minutes:

• A portrait of yourself — a real photograph, not a logo.
• A photograph of your studio or workspace, even a corner of it.
• A wide image for the top of your profile — usually a detail of one of your works.
• Your education, exhibitions and awards, if you have them. Skip anything you don't.
• Bank or PayPal details for payment.
• A photograph or scan of your government ID.

2Professional name

The name that appears on your profile, on every listing, and on the certificate of authenticity. It does not have to match your legal name — use the name you already sign work with.

Your legal name is collected separately for payment and verification. It is never shown publicly.

3Artist statement

Your statement introduces the ideas behind your work. It helps collectors and curators understand your practice, your themes and your process. This is not a biography — it is about the art, not about you.

A structure that works

1. What you make, and how. Medium, approach, materials.
2. What the work explores. Themes, ideas, influences.
3. Your process or intention. What you hope someone takes from it.

4Biography

The factual counterpart to your statement. Where you are from, where you work, what you work in, and what you have done. Written in the third person, in a plain professional register.

5Education

Formal training, if you have it. If you are self-taught, leave this blank. It is not held against you — a number of the artists we show never went to art school.

6Awards & residencies

Prizes, grants, fellowships and residencies. Most recent first.

Local and regional awards count. So do residencies you were selected for but could not attend — note that in the line.

7Solo exhibitions

Only shows where you were the primary focus. A two-person show is not a solo show — put it under group exhibitions.

8Group exhibitions

Curated group shows, biennials, art fairs and museum exhibitions.

If the list is long, five to ten of the strongest reads better than thirty. Curators skim this field.

9Publications & press

Anywhere your work has been written about or reproduced.

10Collections

Public or corporate collections only. Museums, foundations, universities, corporate holdings.

11Profile photograph

A photograph of you. This sits beside your name everywhere on the site.

It matters more than artists expect. People buying an original at this price are buying from a person, not a catalogue — and a face makes that real in a way a logo never does.

A phone camera near a window, taken by someone else, beats a studio portrait taken five years ago.

12Background image

The wide banner across the top of your public profile page. It sets the tone before anyone reads a word.

Keep the middle simple. Your name and details sit over this image, so anything busy in the centre — high contrast, fine detail, text — will fight with them. An area of flat colour or soft texture in the middle works best.

It is cropped differently on phones, so avoid anything where the edges are essential to the composition.

13Studio photograph

Where you work. Optional — and the single most persuasive thing on your profile after the work itself.

Collectors ask about the studio constantly. It is the evidence that a real person in a real room made this. A tidy, empty, professionally lit space is less convincing than a working one.

1Which categories you work in

Tick every category you genuinely work in. This decides which form you see when you list a work, and which filters collectors find you through.

• Painting — on canvas, panel, paper or board.
• Calligraphy — traditional, contemporary or hybrid script.
• Premium prints — editioned reproductions and original print media.
• Photography — analogue or digital, printed.
• Sculpture — free-standing or wall-mounted, any material.
• Digital art — including AI-assisted work.

Tick two if you work in two. Don't tick a category speculatively — an empty category on your profile reads worse than a missing one.

2AI-assisted work

If you select Digital Art, we ask whether you create AI-assisted works. Answer honestly. We list AI-assisted work — we simply require it to be declared.

If you answer yes, listing a digital work will ask you for four short things:

• Which tools you used — Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, a custom model.
• Your role — prompting, training, compositing, painting over, curating.
• What is generated and what is made by hand.
• Where the source material came from — your own photographs, sketches, licensed or public domain.

A sentence each is plenty. What we are looking for is meaningful authorship — that the work is directed and shaped by you, not typed once and exported.

3The 40%

Artistern retains 40% of the artwork price. You set the price, and you receive the remaining 60%.

Payment processing fees come out of our 40%. Stripe and PayPal take 2–3% of every transaction and we absorb it, so your 60% is calculated on the full listed price. You can work out your share from the sticker price with no surprises.

Shipping, customs duty and taxes are not part of the artwork price and no commission is taken on them.

4Who pays for shipping

The buyer pays shipping, as a separate line at checkout. That amount is then sent to you at dispatch so you can book the courier without being out of pocket.

It arrives separately from, and earlier than, your share of the sale — because you need it before the work moves, not after the return window closes.

5When you get paid

Your share is paid 7 business days after the buyer's return window closes, once funds have cleared and there is no dispute.

The return window depends on where the buyer lives:

A sale to Germany or the UK therefore pays out about a week later than one to Australia. That is a statutory right those buyers have, not a policy choice, and it is why the dates differ.

6How you're paid

Choose bank transfer or PayPal, then enter the details for that method. We pay in your local currency and cover the conversion ourselves.

Keep these details current. We are not able to recover a payment sent to an account you no longer hold, though we will always help you trace it.

7Confirming your rights

You will be asked to confirm: "I created these works and hold full rights to sell and publish them on Artistern."

This is the single most important thing you tell us. It means the work is yours, that no one else holds rights over it, and that nothing in it infringes someone else's copyright — including source imagery in collage or digital work.

8ID verification

We ask for a photograph or scan of a government ID — passport, national ID card or driving licence.

Why: to confirm you are who you say you are before we publish work under your name and send money to an account in it. It protects you as much as us — identity theft in the art world usually means someone else selling your work.

9The Artist Agreement

The final step asks you to accept the Artist Agreement. It is worth ten minutes. The parts that affect you most:

• You keep your copyright. Always. Listing grants us a licence to show and promote the work, nothing more.
• You own each artwork until it sells. We hold it on consignment and sell in our own name, which is why buyers deal with us rather than with you.
• You set your own prices. We may suggest an adjustment; we will never change one without asking.
• It is non-exclusive. Sell elsewhere freely — just tell us promptly if a listed work sells somewhere else so we can take it down.
• Either side can leave on 30 days' notice. Confirmed orders get completed, and you are still paid for them.

Read the full agreement before accepting. If a clause worries you, reply to the email and ask — that is a reasonable thing to do and we would rather you did.

10After you submit

You will see a confirmation, and then:

1. We read it — within 2 to 5 business days. A person, not a filter. Nobody is rejected for a small portfolio or no exhibition history.
2. We write to you either way. If something needs fixing we say exactly what, and your application stays open where it was.
3. If approved, your dashboard opens and you can list up to 30 works. That rises to 60 after your first sale.

1Choosing the category

Your first choice loads a form tailored to that medium, so pick carefully — changing it later means re-entering the details.

Two that catch people out:

• A photograph of a painting is a print, not a photograph. Photography means the photograph is the work.
• A digitally made image printed and sold as an edition can be either Premium Prints or Digital Art. Choose Digital Art if the file is the original.

2Writing the description

This sits under the work on its listing page. It is the closest thing a collector gets to you standing beside them explaining it.

Your statement covers your practice as a whole. This is about this one piece.

Around 150 words is the sweet spot. Forty is the floor, not a target.

3Details, materials and dimensions

Every category asks for medium, style, subject and colour from a dropdown, with an Add custom option when nothing fits. Use the custom field rather than forcing a near-match — the filters are only as good as the honesty behind them.

Measuring

• Measure the work, not the frame — there is a separate field for framing.
• Height × width, always in that order. Depth only if it has meaningful depth.
• Centimetres. Round to the nearest half centimetre.
• Sculpture also needs weight in kilograms, and a fragility flag. Both drive the shipping quote the buyer sees, so a guess here costs someone money.

4Editions and authenticity

For originals — painting, calligraphy, sculpture — the type is locked to Original. You tell us whether it is signed and where.

For prints and photography, you declare the edition type and size.

Certificate of authenticity. We provide an Artistern certificate template for you to complete and include with the work. Download it at this step. For editioned work it should carry the edition number.

5Photographing your work

This is where most listings are won or lost. A strong work photographed badly will not sell; an honest, well-lit photograph of a modest work often will.

Required for every work

• Primary image — the whole work, straight on, square to the camera.
• Secondary image — an angle or a detail.
• Sculpture also needs front, side, back and a detail.

Worth adding

• A close detail showing surface and texture — this is what convinces people.
• The work hung in a room, for scale.
• Your signature or the back label.

6Pricing your work

You set the price. Prices are entered in USD and shown to buyers in their own currency.

A place to start

• What you have sold for before is the strongest anchor you have. Stay consistent with it — collectors do check.
• Size and medium matter, but less than artists think. A small, resolved work outsells a large unresolved one.
• Career stage matters more. Look at artists at a similar stage with a similar exhibition record, not at names you admire.
• Price consistently across channels. If the same work is cheaper on your own site, a collector who finds both will not buy from either.

You can also set availability and ready to ship in — be realistic here, because it becomes the promise the buyer sees.

7Review and submit

The final step shows everything back to you with a checklist. Anything incomplete is clickable and takes you straight back to it.

You confirm three things:

• The work is accurately described.
• You hold full rights to sell and publish it.
• For digital or AI-assisted work, that the process disclosure is accurate.

Then Save as Draft or Submit for Review. Most listings are reviewed within two business days. If we ask for a change it is usually a photograph, and we tell you exactly which one and why.

1Packing it properly

International freight is rough. Assume the parcel will be dropped, stacked under something heavier, and left in the rain for an hour.

Stretched canvas or panel

1. Tape a sheet of glassine or acid-free paper over the face. Never plastic directly against paint — it can stick, especially in heat.
2. Corner protectors on all four corners. Cardboard is fine; foam is better.
3. Two layers of bubble wrap, bubbles facing out.
4. Sandwich between two sheets of rigid card or thin ply, cut slightly larger.
5. Into a double-walled box with at least 5 cm of void fill on every side. The work must not move at all when you shake it.

Works on paper

Flat, between rigid boards, in a hard-sided box. Only use a tube if the work was made to be rolled — rolling a work that has been flat for years can crack it permanently. If in doubt, ship flat.

Framed work and glass

Tape a cross of masking tape over the glass so it holds together if it breaks. Better still, remove the glass and let the buyer reglaze — say so in a note and we will explain it to them.

Sculpture

Custom crate, foam-cut to the form. Detach anything that can be detached and pack it separately with a note. Heavy pieces need a pallet, and the courier needs to know that before collection.

2Photograph it before it goes

Keep the photographs until the buyer's return window has closed and you have been paid. Then keep them anyway.

3Booking the courier

The shipping the buyer paid is sent to you at dispatch. You book the carrier.

• Use a service with tracking and signature on delivery. Not the cheapest option.
• Declare the full sale value on the customs paperwork. Under-declaring to reduce the buyer's duty is illegal, and it voids the insurance you would need if it were lost.
• Describe it accurately — original artwork, hand-painted — and use the correct customs code. Original art is duty-free in many countries; the wrong description loses the buyer that exemption.
• Add the tracking number to your portal as soon as you have it. That triggers the buyer's dispatch email.

If the work is very large, very fragile, or going somewhere difficult, tell us before booking. We can arrange it instead where that is more practical.

4What insurance actually covers

Works are shipped insured where cover is available. It is not available everywhere, and the limits are real. You accept this when you list a work, so it is worth understanding rather than skimming.

• Cover can be restricted by destination — sanctions, export controls, carrier policy, or the value of the work.
• Where full cover is unavailable we may ship with limited cover, or decline the shipment if the risk is too high.
• Inadequate packing can invalidate a claim entirely. If a work is damaged because it was packed badly, the cost can be allocated to you.
• Artistern's liability for shipping loss or damage does not exceed the amount actually recovered from the carrier, or the sale price, whichever is lower.
• Government seizure, customs detention and losses from inaccurate declarations are not covered.

5If a work comes back

Buyers can change their mind within their return window. It happens, and it says nothing about the work — most collectors at this level are furnishing a specific wall.

The buyer pays the return shipping, not you. A reversed sale simply means the commission is not earned and your share is not due.

The work normally comes back to you rather than routing through Australia. When it arrives:

1. Photograph it before unpacking further — the parcel first, then the work.
2. Check it against how it left you.
3. Report its condition in writing within 3 business days. If we don't hear from you in that time, we treat it as returned in good order and you lose the chance to raise a problem.

Then relist it. It is still a good work.

6Asking for help

If anything here is unclear, or your situation doesn't fit — an unusual material, a difficult destination, a work that can't be packed conventionally — write to support@artistern.com before you improvise.

A question costs nothing. A work damaged in transit costs a sale, a collector, and a piece you cannot make again.