Welcome back! Today in The Lounge, Nick sits down with Chloe Brown of Fresh Paint Art Advisors! She’s an art consultant who has a tremendous amount of experience working with interior designers, and today she shares her wisdom on the niche role of art advisors in the residential, commercial, hospitality and healthcare design world.

Getting to Know Chloe

Chloe is based in LA with Fresh Paint Art Advisors. The firm curates art collections for residential, hospitality, commercial, and healthcare projects, which means coordinating between clients and a roster of about 500 artists – from sculptors, to painters and illustrators — as well as interior designers. The goal is to curate an art collection that fits the narrative established by the designers in the space, and to make sure that the clients are able to enjoy an inspired interior.

The Fresh Paint Process

Although the brick and mortar HQ of Fresh Paint Art Advisors is in LA, they’ve done work in Australia, China, and the U.S. Chloe says the business was started 38 years ago, not by her, but by Josetta Sbeglia, and Chloe says the firm is a big family — even though they aren’t all technically related!

Fresh Paint will work in-depth with their clients to understand exactly what they are looking for. However, she says there is a lot of variability with her clients: some are very specific and involved in the process of choosing art, while others aren’t at all. On the hospitality side, for example, Fresh Paint really hopes to expedite the process of choosing art. With a private home or residence, though, the process is much more intimate and protracted.

Working With Your Budget

One of the great things that Chloe is able to do as an art consultant is to work with budgets. Clients can go through the whole process to acquire the right art for the project and then be given a high-end or low-end project estimate, but still have art provided that is right for the design aesthetic. Chloe says their biggest budget on a project is currently around $1 million! The project is a resort with about 750 rooms. Not including corridors, that means about 3,500 pieces of art are required for the project: whether reproductions, originals, sculptures, paintings, installations, and beyond. For residential, their biggest project is currently about $350,000 for approximately 45 pieces.

Chloe gives a tip: a series of small, intimate pieces with one major “statement piece” is a better bet for the budget-concerned client, rather that several big, feature pieces. On the topic of client requests, Chloe says that Fresh Paint gets strange requests all the time, and that working with clients to pin down those exact requests is a really important part of what they do. In fact, those strange requests force the consultants to go looking for new fabrics or perhaps even new artists to provide the best pieces.

“You want the client to enjoy their space and love their space. And at the end, when it comes together…and there’s a flow to the space in the home, it is exciting. That’s really what we love to do.”

Learn more about Chloe and Fresh Paint Art Advisors at their website, on Instagram @chloeatfreshpaintart and on Facebook!  Also, Chloe would love to hear from you via email at Chloe@freshpaintart.com. Any questions are free!