Gallery Ready Artwork
Visual Art Students must ensure any artwork submitted for exhibitions is gallery-ready. We want your work to look the best it can. Please follow these guidelines to ensure your work meets gallery expectations at ǧÃŬAV.
Note: For questions about display requirements or needs, please get in touch with your area faculty or Gallery Director, Victoria Cooke. For the Hal B. Rhodes Student Exhibition, contact Prof. Craig Wilson.
Gallery Ready Guidelines
Gallery-ready artwork should meet the following guidelines:
- Your painting must be dry.
- Wall mounted work must be:
- Framed
- Using D-rings for hanging wires or french cleats. Sawtooth hangers are not allowed
- The D-rings should be 1/3 down on the side and the center point where the hanging wire hooks should be at least 2 inches
- If multiple pieces should be hung together, make sure the stretched picture hanging wire is the same distance from the top of the picture fame.
- The D-rings should be 1/3 down on the side and the center point where the hanging wire hooks should be at least 2 inches
- We recommend wall mounted work to be matted but it is not required
- Please label on the back which direction is up
- Multi-piece sculptures or wall work must be clearly marked with numbers as to arrangement of pieces and orientation.
- Please include labels on the back of the artwork and a drawing showing how the pieces should be presented.
- If your artwork must hang from the ceiling, make sure you plan ahead so proper preparations can be made such as the correct amount of hanging material.
- For your inventory label, have your name, title, date, and medium taped to the back of the work.
- Having the dimensions in inches is also very helpful
- Drop off your artwork on time! There is always a tight schedule.
Basic Framing for Paintings
The most inexpensive technique is to dress the edges of your work by painting them with a neutral color like black or gray. This is always preferable to leaving the staples exposed, but is still very basic, lacking in care and attention to detail.
A simple but effective way to prepare a painting for exhibition is the use of a strip frame. Strip framing can be done with a variety of different molding materials which can be found at local home improvement/lumber stores. The most common (and probably the cheapest) is lattice stripping. Lattice strips are long thin wood pieces that can easily be cut to the length needed.
When creating a simple strip frame, it is important to look at the orientation of your image. For example, if your artwork is vertical, then you will want to apply the top and bottom strips first. By doing the top and bottom first one can anticipate the length of the sides and conceal the corner joint.
