Own Art: Limitd

What are your backgrounds and what made you decide to set up Limitd?
We met at college, studying photography, and have always enjoyed pairing up to take on projects. Limitd is a solution to a problem that we perceive. The options for buying the kind of art that we like are limited. Often an art purchase is a decision between paying a great deal of money or getting something which you can afford but don't really want. The aim is to provide good, complex art with lasting appeal, sourcing it from new artists who are most in need of exposure of this kind, and balancing the value/scarcity element correctly to make it affordable.

What kind of work are you looking for when you're scouring degree shows for art to feature?
We're looking for work which has both strong visual appeal and a thought process behind it. It could be literally anything, but it must have both parts.

Tell us about a few of the pieces on Limitd that you're loving just now?
In the last couple of months we've started to introduce non-photographic pieces. As photographers, this isn't our area of expertise, but it's an extremely rich and diverse area. We've got a print by Sarah Jackson, a UCA Farnham graduate illustrator, of a stag in a mountain setting. It's bright and cheerful but it's also highly original, and unlike any picture of a stag you've seen before. One of my favourites is a photo triptych by Lisa Larkham which shows scenes of a divided Northern Irish town from the perspective of an ice cream van window. It's a simple idea, but there's evidence in the pictures of what the landscapes mean to the artist and that's why there is so much to see within them.

An interesting feature of Limitd is the blog, where you interview the artists about their work and muse on such things as the 'Top Five Best-Designed National Flags'. Tell us more.
Without a physical location in which to see the work close-up, it is important to take every opportunity to build rapport with potential customers. The blog, along with our social media channels, is an outlet for ours and our artists’ opinions and personalities. I started writing the 'Top Fives' to encourage visits from people who might not be shopping for art just now, but who might end up with Limitd on their radars.

You currently feature paintings and photography, have you any plans to branch out to include other forms in the future?
We don't have a strict rule which says we'll only ever sell limited edition prints. We're looking into ways of selling one-off originals, hand-drawn pieces and other things which can be completely unique, made-to-order. We might start selling books, too. If it feels right, it's worth taking a chance.

You're based in Glasgow but recently you've been travelling the country to put on pop-up shows. What events have you got coming up?
Increasingly we're looking into opportunities for popping up in London. There are some great art fairs and pop-up programmes in London which we desperately wish had equivalents north of the border. For now, we have a travelling pop-up exhibition which we have taken to different bars in Glasgow for people to see the prints up close, and we'll have a visible presence at the Merchant City Festival, close to where our office is. We always give out details of these events online, as they come up.