Our story about Paul Insect

Our story about Paul Insect

Paul is a really special artist and we are really happy with how our relationship has grown. This is our account of how it all started.

3 min read

Artist Paul Insect in his studio

We met Paul Insect for the first time when we had an offline launch for our collaboration with the Chapman Brothers in London, late 2017. We were in touch on Instagram but Paul is notoriously hard to get hold of, so we were pleased to hear that he was a fan of the Chapman Brothers and had decided to come down. As he doesn’t show his face on the internet, we had no idea who it was we were looking for! When we eventually found each other, we told Paul we were fans of his work, and that we’d love to do a collaboration. Paul had doubts. He told us that he did not want to do a print for the sake of it — he needed some time to think about what he wanted to do.

Paul Insect is a British contemporary artist born in 1971 in southeastern England.

A few weeks later, he called with an idea. Paul liked our name, Avant Arte, saying that it sounded super luxurious! So, with that in mind, he wanted to do a really high quality print, something that pushed the boundaries of printmaking and gave people an unforgettable experience opening the box when they receive it.

We have worked with a lot of artists, but nobody makes prints like Paul does. Normally, when an artist makes a print for us it is based on an original artwork. But with Paul, it’s different. He doesn’t replicate a pre-existing work, but instead, he creates a whole new piece with experimental printing techniques specifically developed for his Avant Arte editions.

In May 2018 we had our first release with Paul. After the release, a collector asked me if he could buy the original painting that was the inspiration for the print. I asked Paul, but he told me that he had never actually made a painting for it!

The first release was a big success. It sold out really fast which was great, but the best thing about the release was the feedback from collectors. Everybody was amazed by the quality of the print, and at that point, we knew it was going to be a classic. Paul had raised the bar and made a new benchmark for quality.

Paul is a really special artist and we are really happy with how our relationship has grown. Watching his development as an artist in the time we have known each other has also been a great joy! I would recommend that everyone sees Paul’s work in person. To experience how strong his technical abilities are as a painter and printmaker makes you understand what is so fantastic about his work. I once called him the pop version of Sigmar Polke and he laughed and told me that he would paint the dots much better than Polke himself — but he kindly accepted the comparison!

This is now going to be our 4th release with Paul and we’re super excited to work with him again, especially as it will be the first time we’re doing a tondo print. We’ll be releasing three print editions by Paul: The Reflection – Blue, The Reflection – Red and finally, The Observer. For The Observer we will release 95% of the editions on the public launch so that everyone’s in with a chance of owning a Paul Insect print!

We can’t wait to share the editions with our global community of art lovers, and we look forward to the future ahead of us full of Paul Insect’s insight and talent.



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