Sharuna Segaren talks to founder Richard Lee on his new business venture, a bright new gallery currently located in Bangsar, the Montage Fine Art Gallery which has been open for just a few months. 

Surprisingly, founders of the Montage Fine Art Gallery Richard Lee and Nicole Ho were not actively involved in the art industry before opening the Montage Fine Art Gallery. The husband-and-wife team’s businesses revolve around high-tech engineering products and services, as well as property investments.

An engineer by profession, Lee explained how they embarked on this new adventure in the art industry.

“We got into this quite by chance, when we were travelling home from Hong Kong and bumped into our art teacher Peter Liew.

While talking, he suggested getting involved in the art scene as we have some experience with art as well as business. He asked us, why not invest in the art industry?

After some deliberation, I found the idea interesting and wanted to pursue it.

I realized that fine art was becoming an emerging investment asset class in the country.

The whole process was relatively quick, as we spoke about it in April, established the company in May and opened the gallery in June.”

The founders chose this initial location on Jalan Maarof, Bangsar, as it is a relatively affluent area. It also serves as a public space due to its convenient location, ideal for events and exhibitions. Last year, the Montage Fine Art Gallery was a major sponsor of Miss Malaysia Tourism 2015 and held a special pageant within its premises to crown Miss Montage Fine Art.

While it may have been considered an unconventional venue for such an event, it turned out to be success. Part of the competition entailed each contestant being matched to a selected piece of artwork where they were tasked with sharing their thoughts about the artwork.

This served a great purpose of providing exposure to their artists as well as showing that appreciation and understanding of the arts is an important part of being a well-rounded individual.

The gallery’s location in Bangsar is only temporary, however, as they are planning to move the gallery to their own property in Subang Jaya in February. Lee said, “We always intended to open there but the property was not ready yet so we decided to start temporarily in Bangsar.

As we already have our own property it only makes sense profitably to house this gallery there.”

Lee and Ho both studied under local artist and teacher Peter Liew during his weekend art classes when they were in secondary school.

In fact, that was how they met. As he was running the Montage Art Centre at that time, Lee and Ho decided to include the name ‘Montage’ in this new venture as well.

Their respect and admiration for Liew’s work not only paved the way for the opening of this new gallery but also led them to keep him on as advisor and chief artist.

The savvy and eloquent businessman said, “Although we have some experience and knowledge about art, since we went onto pursue other careers, we don’t dare claim ourselves as artists or experts in this field. This is where Peter comes in.

He determines whether the art pieces are of good quality and whether or not an artist produces high-grade artwork. He has also introduced us to a number of good artists.”

The white, airy space houses artwork from a mix of local and international artists besides Peter Liew, such as Naima Carbonare, Christine Dass, Shafie Hassan, Li Po Yuan, Vladimir Ryabchikov, Khoo Sui Hoe, Khoo Cheang Jin , Gjorgji Chulakovski (Gjoto), Chong Hon Fatt, Daniel Ludvig, Zoltan Székács, Chen Hung Chang, Klara Ludvig, Christina Chang, Bahaiden, Milena Mladenova, and Ludvig Zoltan.

Lee said, “I like to have some international flavour in our art business. Although it’s good to represent the local talent and find the best infrastructure for them to represent their work on a global scale, it’s also good to bring and expose foreign artworks to the country.

Most of the other local art galleries don’t offer too many choices from European artists but choose to be more fixated on local and regional works. We try to distinguish ourselves by offering more diverse artworks from talents abroad as well as locals.”

Due to the fact that the Montage Fine Art gallery is somewhat of a side business for the founders, Lee explained that they are not intending to make a ton of money or impact just yet.

“We are not in a major rush right now. Currently, the local art industry is relatively slow, due to the economic downturn.

“For us, it is not really an issue as our real income is not derived that much from the artwork that we sell.

We do need to generate revenue to sustain our operations but we aren’t solely relying on this as we have other sources of income. Our approach is to take our time to feel the industry and learn from it.”

Lee says that from his observations, the Malaysian art industry is still at the infancy stage. “The population ratio of the number of art buyers and art appreciators compared to the general public is very low compared to other countries that have better understanding and appreciation for the arts. However, the positive side of it only means that we have so much more to grow and that there are many opportunities to seize.

Since the art market is still young, this means that good art is still affordable, compared to more advanced countries like the U.S., where high-grade artwork prices are exorbitantly high.”

The growing art market in Malaysia is in need of savvy investors and advocates such as Lee and Ho in order to bring more awareness and appreciation for the fine arts. Along with the experience and trained eye of Peter Liew, they intend to bring high quality fine art from overseas as well as construct a platform to showcase Malaysian fine art on a global scale.

This article was originally published in The Expat Magazine which is available online or in print via a free subscription.