Your own curation

We would all love to own beautiful, original works of art and proudly display them in our homes, but few of us have the budget. Neither do most of us have the time or the knowledge to search for the perfect pieces that reflect our tastes and, most importantly, match our decor.

Fortunately, there is a group of experts who have covered all those angles. The Art Lease Group has been established for 10 years, during which time they have leased countless contemporary art works to businesses. Now they are providing the same service to art-loving individuals in their homes.

Says Belinda Corder Kruger, managing director of Art Lease: 'We're very excited to offer this brand new service in Hong Kong. No galleries or artists [here] lease art to homes. We've been offering this service to the commercial sector for 10 years now, so we are very experienced in this line of work and we noticed a growing demand from our office clients to lease art for their homes; therefore we decided to roll out the service to the wider community.'

Most of the stock for lease is on the company's website or in its portfolio, which Kruger and her team are happy to take to clients' homes for viewing. Also, if you already have something specific in mind, Art Lease will do its best to obtain it for you.

Says Kruger: 'This is a very easy way to get art on your walls with minimum outlay and we have found with our experience in the commercial sector that clients are able to be a bit 'braver' with their art choices. The advantage of leasing for our residential clients is, above all, flexibility. We have met several couples who have widely different tastes in art; so with leasing the wife can decide on the artwork for one year and the husband can choose the following year, so everyone is happy. I hope [our service] encourages more people to buy art as it's not as intimidating as walking into a gallery. I believe in educating our audience as much as possible and taking the academic snobbery out of art.'

The art can be leased for HK$500 to HK$1,500 a month. A year's lease is recommended. For more information, go to art-lease.com or call 8106 6071.