BY PENELOPE SONDER
There has never been more art available to discover. Thousands of artists share their work online every day, and more people are buying art than ever before. Yet despite this abundance, most of us still find art in the same way: through established galleries, major exhibitions, and artists who already have recognition.
Access without true discovery
This creates a challenge. While new artists and new collectors continue to enter the market, many talented creators remain difficult to find. The issue isn’t a lack of great art. It’s that visibility is still concentrated around a relatively small number of artists and institutions.
According to the latest Art Basel and UBS Art Market Report, almost half of buyers (44%) were new to galleries. Representation of female artists among art dealers has risen to 45%, reaching 50% in primary market galleries. These figures point to a market that is becoming more diverse and accessible. However, they also highlight an important question: if more people are entering the art world, why are so many still discovering art through the same established channels?
The persistence of visibility bias
Even in a digital age where access seems limitless, how people discover art is often shaped by systems that promote what is already popular. What galleries choose to exhibit, what publications choose to feature and what appears most prominently on the platforms we use every day all influence which artists receive attention, and which remain overlooked.
Many artists outside established networks create exceptional work but struggle to achieve visibility. Without access to galleries, influential curators or well-established platforms, their work can circulate online without ever reaching the audiences most likely to connect with it.
What gets surfaced becomes what matters
For collectors, especially those new to the market, the experience can feel overwhelming. There is no shortage of art to explore but knowing where to start is often another matter. In practice, many people end up following familiar names, recognised galleries and artists who already have visibility.
What we see repeatedly often begins to feel more important. Psychology has long shown that familiarity shapes preference, and in art, repeated exposure can easily be mistaken for personal taste. Over time, this can narrow discovery before it has truly begun.
Rethinking how discovery begins
However, new methods for discovery are now emerging. These don’t replace galleries or curators, but aim to broaden the initial connection between artists and audiences. One such method is NALA |The Art Matchmaker, a platform linking over 18,000 living artists with collectors, curators, and interior designers.
Referred to as the art matchmaker, NALA is based on a simple idea: discovery is more meaningful when it starts with individual responses instead of external validation. Instead of guiding users toward already known artists, the platform examines patterns in what people respond to visually and conceptually, using these insights to highlight work they are likely to connect with.
NALA doesn’t depend on follower counts, exhibition history, or market performance. It looks at relationships within the artwork itself. Colour, composition, symbolism, texture, and form all play a role in how art is understood and connected. The goal isn’t to mirror what someone already knows but to reveal work that feels familiar even if it looks different.
In practice, this means a search might start with a specific image, like a painting of a red house in the rain at night and discover work that doesn’t directly match the description but shares a similar atmosphere or emotional tone. The aim isn’t literal sameness, but recognition on a deeper, more intuitive level.
Technology, bias, and the limits of visibility
This isn’t about removing human judgement from art. Art is highly subjective, and no system can fully capture why a work resonates with one person but not another. However, it can expand the range of experiences that shape that judgement from the start.
This becomes crucial when considering how bias accumulates. If discovery relies only on what has already been validated, the same artists, locations, and styles will continue to receive the most attention. Visibility begins to reinforce itself, and over time the market risks reflecting only a fraction of the creativity that exists.
What a more open system might look like
As more first-time collectors enter the market and artists navigate increasingly global yet unevenly visible digital spaces, the question isn’t simply how to increase access. It is how to make discovery less predetermined.
By the time an artwork becomes widely known, it has already passed through multiple layers of selection and validation. A more interesting question is what remains unseen: which artists never reach those stages, and what opportunities for connection are lost as a result.
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Penelope Sonder is COO of NALA, | The Art Matchmaker, an art discovery platform connecting more than 18,000 living artists with collectors, curators and interior designers. A former Head of Acquisitions at Maddox Gallery, she works at the intersection of art, collecting and technology, focusing on how discovery systems shape visibility, value and access in the contemporary art world.
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