Your Questions, Answered

Behold is built for the entire art ecosystem. Artists are at the center, but Behold also helps galleries, schools, museums, curators, collectors, designers, and other organizations connect people with art through discovery. Whether you're creating, exhibiting, teaching, collecting, or simply exploring, Behold is designed to make visual art easier to discover and share.

No. Behold includes professional, semi-professional, emerging, self-taught, student, and independent artists.

The common thread is not résumé status. It is seriousness of practice, quality of presentation, and a desire to share work with a wider audience.

Instagram and social platforms are built around people, posts, ads, reels, comments, and constant scrolling.

Behold is built around visual art. The artwork takes the lead. The experience is quieter, more immersive, and more intentional. Viewers can spend time with a piece, zoom into details, read about the work, save it, and return to it.

The goal is not just to generate quick likes. The goal is to create deeper discovery, visibility, connection, and eventually more meaningful paths to purchase, licensing, display, and artist opportunity.

Behold is still early, which means artists who participate now help shape the platform and begin building visibility before the audience becomes larger.

Early artists also help us learn what collectors, art lovers, and casual viewers respond to. We are already seeing strong engagement, including long average session times, which suggests people are not just glancing — they are looking.

For the current stage, we recommend uploading a focused selection rather than your entire archive at once.

A good starting point is 10–25 strong works. Think of it as your Behold presentation: enough to show range, but curated enough to make a clear impression.

You can also add new work gradually. Adding or refreshing work over time may help your profile continue to feel active and current. Future updates will include the ability to curate your work into groups.

Upload clear, well-lit images that represent the artwork accurately.

Avoid blurry photos, harsh glare, distracting backgrounds, crooked framing, or heavily filtered images. The viewer’s first experience of your work is visual, so image quality matters.

Recommended file size is generally between 1 MB and 10 MB. These requirements are subject to change. We suggest using larger image files to allow enough details for a good zooming experience.

At minimum, include the title, year, medium, dimensions, and a short description.

The description does not need to be academic. It should help the viewer understand what they are seeing, what you were exploring, what inspired the piece, or what makes the work meaningful to you.

People often connect more deeply when they understand something about the artist’s intention, process, or story.

Your profile should help a viewer understand who you are and why your work matters.Include your name, location, artist bio, style or philosophy, profile photo, and a website or social

link. If you are outside the United States and sell your work elsewhere, include the best link for people to learn more or contact you.

A complete profile builds  trust. An incomplete profile can make it harder for people to engage, save, follow, or buy.

Yes. Artists may provide a link to their own website, social profiles, or other contact information.

Because the Behold Marketplace is currently available only in the U.S., artists outside those regions, or artists offering sales not yet supported through the Behold Marketplace, are encouraged to provide an outside purchase link so interested viewers can learn more or buy directly.

If a viewer chooses to purchase through an outside link, the transaction takes place outside of Behold.

Behold does not process, manage, guarantee, or endorse purchases made through third-party websites or external links. Buyers and artists are responsible for any communication, payment, shipping, taxes, duties, returns, or disputes related to those outside transactions.

Yes. Behold currently takes a 15% commission on artwork sold through the Behold Marketplace.

Artists are encouraged to factor this commission into their artwork pricing. For example, if an artwork is priced at $1,000, Behold’s 15% commission would be $150 before any other applicable costs.

The Behold Marketplace is currently open for supported U.S.-to-U.S. sales through the

Behold-enabled store. Artists should review the current Marketplace seller agreement for complete commission, fee, payout, tax, shipping, and fulfillment details.

Behold does not take a commission on purchases made through an artist’s outside website or store. Those transactions take place outside of Behold. Be sure to change the availability of your artwork if sold outside of Behold.

Yes, Behold has marketplace functionality to support the sale of original artwork. In the early marketplace stage, sales will be limited by geography, shipping readiness, payment setup, and artist onboarding status. Beholds plans to open the marketplace to new regions and legal and logistical issues are resolved.

For original artwork, the artist is responsible for packing and shipping the work.

Artists should be prepared to provide adequate packaging, shipping details, and timely fulfillment. Clear communication and safe packaging are essential for buyer trust.

For marketplace sales, payment timing depends on the transaction process, payment provider, fulfillment status, and Behold’s seller agreement.

In general, funds are held until the transaction is completed, shipment is confirmed, delivery is acknowledged, or a defined number of days has passed after receipt of the artwork. Exact timing is governed by the current artist agreement and payment provider rules.

Stripe is used to support secure payments, seller onboarding, identity verification, banking information, tax documentation, and payout processing.

Some of the permissions and verification steps may feel unfamiliar, but they are part of standard marketplace payment compliance. Behold does not use Stripe onboarding to casually access or control an artist’s bank account.

If you sell through a payment-enabled marketplace, tax documentation may be issued by the relevant payment platform when thresholds or reporting rules apply.

For many U.S. sellers, the relevant form may be a 1099-K, depending on payment volume and current IRS/payment platform rules. Artists should consult their own tax advisor for personal filing obligations.

For current Behold Marketplace transactions, sales tax is handled through Behold’s commerce and payment systems, including Shopify and Stripe.These platforms help calculate, collect, and process applicable taxes as part of the marketplace checkout and payment flow. Artists do not need to calculate sales tax separately for sales completed through the Behold Marketplace.

Tax handling may change as Behold expands into additional regions, countries, or marketplace structures. Artists should review the current Marketplace seller agreement for the most up-to-date details on tax handling, payment processing, and reporting responsibilities.

Artists retain the rights to their own work unless they agree otherwise in a specific license or agreement.

Behold requires artists to confirm that they have the right to upload the work they submit. The platform is designed for viewing, discovery, and promotion, not unauthorized copying.

That said, no online platform can guarantee that images will never be copied. Behold’s role is to encourage respectful viewing, attribution, discovery, and future monetization opportunities around artists’ work.

No. Uploading artwork to Behold does not mean Behold owns your artwork.

Artists grant Behold the limited rights needed to display, promote, and operate the platform according to the applicable terms. Ownership remains with the artist unless a separate written agreement says otherwise.

Behold’s purpose is to showcase human artwork, not to turn artists’ work into raw material for unauthorized use.

Artists should review the current terms for the exact legal language around image use, platform display, promotion, and any future licensing features. As the platform develops, Behold will continue to be clear about how artist images are used and protected.

Note: Free artist protection tools

In our research, we found that image-protection tools are currently best used by artists before they post finished work online. Two of the most widely discussed tools are Glaze and Nightshade, developed by the University of Chicago’s SAND Lab and made available free for artists. Glaze is designed to help protect an artist’s style from AI mimicry by making subtle changes to an image that are difficult for people to notice but can confuse AI models. Nightshade is designed to help discourage unauthorized AI training by altering images so AI systems may misread them.

Artists who are concerned about unauthorized AI training or style imitation may want to review these tools and decide whether they are appropriate for their own workflow before uploading or sharing images online.

We are grateful to the University of Chicago team for making these resources available to artists.

Links:

Glaze: https://glaze.cs.uchicago.edu/

Nightshade: https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/

Nightshade download: https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/downloads.html

Nightshade user guide: https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/userguide.html

Yes. Behold is designed as a focused visual art discovery platform, not a random image dump.

Artists and artworks may be reviewed before appearing publicly so the experience remains credible, respectful, and centered on art. The goal is not to create a narrow gatekeeping system, but to maintain a strong environment where artists can present their work with care and viewers can discover it with confidence.

Curation begins with how you present your own work. You are encouraged to upload a thoughtful selection, add clear artwork information, include descriptions, and help viewers understand your process, ideas, and point of view.

Behold also allows users to begin as collectors by saving favorite works and building personal collections. Future features will expand this into self-curation and shared curations. Artists will be able to organize and present their work in more intentional ways, and as user accounts are enabled, art lovers will also be able to curate and share collections.

These tools are designed to help extend visibility for artists — moving artwork beyond a single feed and into collections that can be revisited, shared, and discovered through users’ networks.

Behold is open to many forms of visual art, including painting, drawing, mixed media, photography, digital art, sculpture documentation, and other visual practices.

The work does not need to fit one style. It should be presented clearly, responsibly, and with enough context for viewers to understand and appreciate it.

Behold is designed to help artists gain more visibility, engagement, and discovery, but it cannot guarantee followers, sales, representation, or income.

Artists will likely see the best results when they present strong work, complete their profiles, tell the story behind their work, keep their portfolio fresh, and share their Behold presence with their own audience.

Sharing tools are available now, making it easy to get your work in front of anyone — collectors, friends, followers, curators, galleries, interior designers, or people who simply love art.

Sharing also helps everyone. Because all approved artists can appear in the Explore experience, every new user has the potential to discover many artists, not just the artist who invited them.

The more people using Behold, the greater the potential for more looking, collecting, sharing, and discovery across the artist community.

Behold is working toward basic reporting and insight tools that help artists understand what is happening with their work, such as views, likes, saves, and other engagement signals.

The goal is to give artists more useful feedback than a simple social media like count.

Start with strong images, complete artwork information, and a thoughtful artist profile.

Use clear, well-lit images. Add the title, year, medium, dimensions, price or availability if relevant, and a short description for each work. Tell people what the work is about, what inspired it, how you approached it, or what you hope they might feel.

Complete your artist profile with a bio, location, profile photo, website or social link, and a clear sense of your style or point of view. People connect more deeply when they understand the artist behind the work. (Don’t forget to add your name. Profiles are held up until all required information is input.)

Keep your presence active. Add new work gradually, refresh what you feature, and continue building your Behold profile over time.

Use Behold’s sharing tools to share your profile, artworks, and collections across your social

media, website, email list, newsletters, gallery contacts, collector lists, and personal network.

Send your work directly to people who may care: collectors, curators, designers, galleries, art consultants, friends, fans, and past buyers.

When you share, give people a reason to look — a new piece, a story, a theme, a collection, or an invitation to save and collect your work inside Behold.

Art needs to be seen before anything else can happen. The more complete, active, and shareable your Behold presence is, the better your chances of being discovered.