Contemporary artist Sacha Jafri is proud of his unique way of working.
His “huge” Dubai studio includes three gallery spaces, a digital space, an office and a conference room. It even has a room dedicated to non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.
The space houses around forty paintings, largely made up of his retrospective collection, as well as unique pieces and commissions.
“Most artists are very closely tied to galleries…whereas with this setup, I can actually develop my own relationships with my clients and really build this collector base all over the world,” Jafri told The Art of Appreciation from CNBC. He also has a gallery in London for European and American buyers.
Jafri, a British artist, studied at the prestigious Ruskin School of Art at Oxford University and has been working for almost 30 years. Known for his realistic, magical art, he creates works in a “meditative state,” he said, using music to get into the right headspace and often painting for several hours at a time.
Artist Sacha Jafri in his studio in Dubai, United Arab Emirates He has stated that he enters a meditative state when creating his work.
Sacha Jafri
“It’s weird also because I paint for the subconscious. So, I’m in a meditative state, I’m in a complete trance, I have no idea what I’m doing. So, it’s weird when things are created like that, which tell a very strong narrative, which I don’t have in mind,” Jafri said.
Jafri created “Journey of Humanity,” a 1,595.76 square meter painting that in 2020 became the world’s largest art canvas. He sold the painting at an auction for children’s charities.
Divided into 70 sections, the immense work of art was purchased by entrepreneur André Abdoune for $62 million in 2021, making Jafri one of the most expensive living artists in the world. (The record was broken in 2022 by Emad Salehi, whose work “The Story of the Ball” spanned nearly 10,000 square meters.)
Jafri has a clever approach to selling his work. “I say no, I guess 99% of people want to buy my work. So I would say one in 100, I would say yes, you are the right person for this piece,” he told CNBC.
“This is my sacrifice as an artist. These are fragments of my soul. And I need to know that they will be loved and cared for,” he said.
Jafri creates about 12 paintings over a two-year period and has about 150 people on a waiting list to buy them, he said. “I want to paint until the day I die. To do that, I need that constant progression, where the value of my work increases every year,” he said.
Artist Sacha Jafri paints on the helipad of the Burj Al Arab Jumeirah hotel in Dubai. He has organized an exhibition of 30 works at the landing pad in 2022.
CNBC International
Shoppers who missed a piece could be first on the list for Jafri’s next collection, he said. “And that keeps the interest in your work, which keeps the supply low and the demand much higher, 10 times higher. And then your value will continue to grow,” he said.
He also avoids selling his works at auction. “You don’t want your work auctioned off too early, you don’t want a boom and bust,” he said. If a painting fails to meet its low estimate at a public sale, this can reduce its perceived value and decrease demand, for example.
Some artists are experimenting with the use of artificial intelligence – and generative AI – in their work, while others see it as a threat.
For Jafri, there is no debate. “AI is not art. AI is very, very useful in the life of humanity, it is very useful in creating quick images that can connect with a human being and convey a message , advertising, marketing, graphic design, that kind of thing But it is not a tool to help artists in any form. Real art must be created by love and. empathy,” he said.
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