Meet PH2 Gallery

London-based Panter & Hall gallery are firm Affordable Art Fair favourites, and this spring they’re returned to Battersea to showcase some of their most exciting concept-led artists whose work forms the basis of their secondary space PH2 Gallery.

We’ve been chatting to Matthew Hall, one half of the duo behind Panter & Hall, to hear about their exciting new space, and get the lowdown on the story behind the gallery …

1. Tell us a bit about how Panter & Hall first started.

I started the gallery back in 2000, alongside Tiffany Panter. We’d worked together for a few years at another gallery and found that we held the same business philosophy and almost identical taste in artists, so it seemed a natural progression to open a gallery together.

We started out in a small Georgian shop in Shepherd’s Market with virtually no passing trade, so we had to work hard to make the gallery more of a destination. Art fairs were such a great way to do this and really helped us get started in the early years.

Over sixteen years our taste in art has remained fairly static as Panter & Hall, however we also now run a secondary space – PH2 Gallery, below our current Pall Mall space – and we have a lot of fun with conceptual and photographic exhibitions through our annual programme there.

At both Panter & Hall and PH2 we show an eclectic mix of largely figurative paintings and drawings, principally by British artists. In choosing artists, primarily Tiffany and I have to like the work – even if it’s not always something we’d choose for our own homes, it’s always something we’d be proud to sell to our friends.

2. How has the art world changed since you started out and how has this affected the gallery?

Over the last 25 years I’ve personally watched the art market change beyond recognition, from the early 1990s when public perception of contemporary art was almost entirely restricted to Ken Howard studio nudes (excellent though they are!) to the Sensation exhibition and the unleashing of the YBA’s at the end of the same decade.

Far more people than ever before are actively buying art, whether as pure decoration or for investment, particularly amongst the younger generations. There seems to be a definite rise of interest in skill based artwork, whether original printmaking or simply drawing and painting, as clients are growing in confidence and learning to trust their own judgement.

3. Favourite thing about running a gallery?

Not knowing what will happen next. We have the most unpredictable and tricky to plan business – tastes change and shows that sell out one year often don’t the next, and vice versa. Opportunities arrive daily whilst carefully laid plans dissolve just as frequently … life is never boring in the gallery!

4. Biggest achievement for the gallery so far?

That we are still here. My favourite phrase was coined in the last recession by a New York gallery owner: ‘Surviving is the new flourishing!’

5. Favourite thing about showing at art fairs?

The social aspect; half the chat at London-based fairs is catching up with old friends and acquaintances we haven’t seen for years. Also the opportunity to spend a week away living on chocolate based confectionary out of sight of my wife!

6. What can we expect to see from PH2 Gallery?

Some cracking thickly painted figurative still life paintings by Cornish painter Alan Kingsbury. He’s been one of our top sellers, so we’re expecting great things from him this year!