Meet K Ryan Henisey | Founder, Artlounge Collective

We had the good fortune of connecting with K Ryan Henisey and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi K Ryan, every day, we about how much execution matters, but we think ideas matter as well. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
The idea for Artlounge Collective came to me on the road. Driving across the country with a friend, I had a lot of time to think about my involvement in the creative sector as an artist, curator, and president of a Los Angeles cooperative gallery. Linking these with research on the arts, a business plan began to form. In the following months, that nascent idea turned into a fully fledged program for artists, a retail focus for consumers, and a business-to-business proposition for partner companies and organizations.

As an artist, I know that the arts sector is highly competitive. Only a small fraction of artists have their work displayed at any given time in the United States–something close to seven in every ten thousand artists. Indeed, only about 240,000 fine artists and photographers earned income from their work in 2019 and 2020. There is a huge amount of talent and skill across the nation but much of that creativity is untapped. Artlounge Collective looks to change that.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Artlounge Collective is different from any other arts organization in the world. The business is supported by three main pillars of operations: artist services and exhibitions, retail commerce, and commercial partnerships.

First and foremost, we serve our artists. Working closely with them, we select their best pieces, ensuring quality and originality in every piece that we take on. Our artists benefit from a collective approach to marking and advertisement and receive regular coaching with our agents as part of their twelve-month contract with our organization. We work hard to ensure that all of our artists are displayed, rotating works not only in our 4,500 square-foot Los Angeles storefront but across more than (currently) 50,000 linear feet of commercial partnership display space. Our artists have more opportunities and more time-on-display than can be found with any other arts-focused business in Los Angeles (and I’ll argue the world).

Our second pillar is focused entirely on the retail applications of art. We are a commercial-driven business that sells art at a consumer level. In the art market, the median price point for everything sold by private dealers and galleries in the United States is $875. But when most people think of a gallery, they assume that prices will be above the tenth percentile of actual sales ($12,000+). We took to take a competitive advantage by ensuring original, quality works from our artists at a median price of $650. This means that approximately three quarters of everything the we sell is under the $1,000 price point. All of those works are curated by myself and our agents, ensuring each one is special.

And finally, we partner with commercial enterprises. Currently, we are contracted with Mondrian Los Angeles, a beautiful boutique hotel on the Sunset Strip, and all of The Artist Tree cannabis dispensaries in California. These partnerships allow us to build exhibition opportunities for our artists at scale. Working with their local teams, we curate and install all of the artwork, creating gallery-quality displays on a rotating basis.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
We’re actually conceptualizing a curated “Date Night” experience with local businesses. This project is still in the working stage but would look something like the following:

Start with us at Atlounge Collective. Enjoy a peaceful self-guided tour of the gallery-store and a complimentary glass of wine. From there, head over to Mondrian Los Angeles and see the current exhibit, Jeff Iorillo’s “Color Play” in the lobby. Be sure to grab a cocktail and take in the views of the city from the hotel’s poolside SkyBar. A short hop away is The Artist Tree, West Hollywood. Enjoy the art on display and take a moment to unwind in the second-floor cannabis lounge. Finish your night with a delicious desert at Better Than Sex on Melrose, near La Brea.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Our Artlounge Collective artists are an amazing pool of creative talents. Justin Prough, Joanna Chrys, Katie Brightside, Jeff Iorillo, and Sküt are artists we’ve showcased with our brilliant art partner, Mondrian Los Angeles. Each of these artists has (or will have) a dedicated solo showing of their fine art works at the Sunset Strip hotel, where we curate the lobby displays on a rotating basis. Mondrian Los Angeles was our first commercial partnership and I am incredibly grateful for their support and belief in our artists and art programming.

The Artist Tree, a chain of cannabis dispensaries, has a brilliant and helpful team. We curate the programs across all of their California stores: West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, K-Town, Riverside, and Fresno. In the West Hollywood store, we have partnered with Luna Anaîs Gallery for a third floor curation of local women artists.

Website: tips://artlounge.co

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artloungecollective/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/artloungeco

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Artlounge.co/