As yacht art consultants, Artelier specialises in curating artwork collections for luxury yachts. As well as sourcing contemporary art by leading global artists, we also collaborate with artists to create custom art commissions tailored to the yacht interior. Learn more about our yacht art projects on our dedicated page.
In a project for leading Dutch yacht yard Amels, Artelier were tasked with developing a unique and personalised art collection for a superyacht. Drawing on our specialist experience curating art for yachts, we carried out bespoke research and commissioned a diverse yet coherent collection of artworks for the yacht interior of the 62m M/Y Sea and Us.
The brief was to curate artworks that have a strong relationship to the ocean – incorporating the yacht's own design, as indicated by the yacht's name, into the interior artworks. Using our database of 10,000 artists, who have been carefully selected over years of research, we developed a custom artwork portfolio that referenced this theme.
The artworks we sourced drew on the full range of materials and techniques employed by contemporary artists. Once completed, the project included 35 works in total, such as bespoke paintings and specially-produced sculptural works.
In the initial stages of the project, we thoroughly surveyed the yacht in order to identify key placements for artworks. This included consulting yacht interior floor plans and design schemes, and taking measurements in order to ascertain the ideal dimensions for new works of art.
Commissioning artists allows the client's own tastes to be incorporated into the works, and for this project the owner specially requested to have a series of paintings inspired by their interest in Impressionism. In response, we collaborated with a leading British painter to create several specialist paintings in an Impressionist style.
The Impressionist artist created several paintings for key spaces across the yacht, matching the muted colours to the soft shades of the interior design. Specifically for the Owner’s Suite, Artelier pushed the level of bespoke further – we worked with the artist to re-interpret one of the client's own favourite paintings using Impressionist techniques. The artist re-imagined the owner's own Russian seascape painting into a softer, more understated palette, and therefore finding a way to incorporate one of the owner's cherished paintings into the yacht's design.
This level of customisation allowed the painting to also be tailored for a practical, as well as aesthetic, purposes. A key requirement of the brief was for painting to also act as a rolling cover for the television, providing an elegant solution for concealing the TV screen when not in use.
While the use of TV rollers aboard yachts has been a growing trend, Artelier has pioneered featuring collectable contemporary artists in this context, and demonstrated the benefits of commissioning new artworks to give a truly personalised element to yacht interiors. Together with the artist, we developed specialist canvases and mediums for use on the painting, adapting it for being technically suitable for repeated rolling and ensuring the longevity of the artwork.
Elsewhere in the yacht, we also commissioned a series of contemporary seascapes for key spaces in the yacht interior. These paintings presented different views of the ocean brought a refreshing burst of aqua and pale blue across the yacht art collection.
Artelier further commissioned a number of sculptures for the yacht specially for the project, including a pair of sculptures developed by a leading artist based in Cornwall.
Taking inspiration from the form of an orca, these bronze sculptures were an abstracted interpretation of orca fins. The process involved the artist making a full-scale model, which was then cast in bronze at a foundry.
In addition, Artelier developed a specialist patina in collaboration with the artist, which was a bright oceanic blue. A range of patinas resembling dappled light on water were used across several other bronze artworks.
As part of our provided expertise for all projects which include commissioned bronze artworks, we have a bronze patina chart that shows a full range of patina options – from natural bronze colours, including high polish bronze, to more vividly coloured patinas. For this project, we were looking specifically at a specialist verdigris patination, produced by a natural weathering process that is particularly accelerated by sea air. When this occurs, the reaction of the copper elements in the bronze create a turquoise colour. Artelier worked with a specialist bronze foundry and patination expert to develop the particularly light and bright and saturated ocean colours used in this project.
Another notable commission was a hand-carved wood panel by British sculptor Simon Allen. Inspired by the shapes of waves and ripples, Allen recreates a sense of fluidity when carving wood.
Each artwork is then delicately gilded in gold leaf, emphasising the dramatic shadows created by the carved surface and highlighting the carved ridges. The gold leaf adds a lustrous finish to the sculpture, so that it shimmers in the light and evokes the movement of the water's surface.
As with all our commissioned sculptures for yachts, we designed specialist sea-fastening fixings to secure the sculptures onboard the yacht. Liaising closely with the boat yard, the fixings were individually developed for each artwork, meeting all safety requirements and ensuring that substantial and heavy sculptures of this nature were fitted securely.
This customised approach allows us to devise solutions that fulfil the owners' wishes, and maintain seamless artwork presentation, while working within the necessary safety standards of the boat yard.
Other sculptures commissioned for this project included a glass wave sculpture, which was delicately carved in different shades of blue glass, and an exquisitely hand-crafted paper sculpture. As part of our turn-key services, we also oversee the shipping and installation of art commissions; specialist knowledge of fine art shipping is essential for such sculptures, to prevent damage and ensure correct handling.
In line with the delicate, fragile nature of the glass and paper cut sculptures, we recommended commissioning some more traditional drawings on paper. These sea-inspired drawings continue the theme of refined craftsmanship and excellency of execution. We commissioned a leading contemporary draughtsman to create the studies of natural shell forms from the ocean.
Working closely with both the yacht owner and the designers throughout in order to fulfil their vision, our art consultancy services evolved their ideas in order to deliver a complete art collection for the yacht.
The art onboard M/Y Sea & Us interpreted the theme of the ocean in a contemporary style; working across a range of mediums, all the artists we commissioned took interpreted the sea in abstracted, unexpected ways, providing a coherent modern art collection.
To learn more about our turn-key art consultancy services, as well as our process for commissioning art, visit our Art Consultancy page. To see further examples of our projects delivering art for luxury yachts, see our dedicated 'Sea' page.
Explore more yacht interior art case studies: M/Y Plvs Vltra (74m), M/Y Go (77m), M/Y Aurora Borealis (68m).