Daine Singer is a clever and industrious businesswoman. After studying art history and doing her masters in Art Curatorship, Daine went on to work in both the public and commercial art sectors, with stints as curator of the Chinese Museum, gallery manager at Anna Schwartz Gallery and associate curator of Experimenta Media Art. When her daughter was born, she took the opportunity to start curating personal projects, which eventually led her to open Daine Singer Gallery in 2012.
In the past four years, Daine has nurtured a stable of talented local artists with national and international appeal. She says it’s her duty to represent individual artists with their own unique projection of the world, rather than represent a collective of artists with similar work. ‘I’m interested in representing artists that have unique individual practices,’ she says. ‘My artists are aged from mid-20s to mid-60s and it’s turned out that I represent slightly more women than men.’
With her gallery hitting its stride, this year Daine decided to launch a second tier to her business – VERSION, a range of limited edition art prints by her artists. Starting at $150, these works are designed to be accessible, giving more people an opportunity to connect with and own pieces from collectible and emerging Australian artists.
‘The curatorial selection of VERSION has come down to things I would want to own!’ mentions Daine. ‘Unlike the traditional gallery model (which I remain committed to), at VERSION, sales are online, prices are transparent and shipping is free. Basically we’ve made it very simple to support local artists by purchasing their editioned artwork.’
So far VERSION has released limited edition prints by artists Minna Gilligan, Kate Tucker, Peter Davidson, Katherine Hattam and Madeline Kidd. The next works will be by Benjamin Lichtenstein and Belle Basin, with a limited sculptural work by Caleb Shea launching next year.
VERSION Contemporary Art Editions range from $150 to $1000, and edition sizes range from 6 to 50. They’re available for purchase here.
