Pixelist

Pixelist turns your favorite Instagrams into handmade oil paintings. Yes to making custom oil paintings affordable.

6 Comments leave a comment below

  1. Who actually does the painting? Do they get paid?

  2. What is their guarantee that they will only produce a painting that is submitted from the original photographer? How do they verify that? Meaning, anybody can grab someone ele’s Instagram photo and submit it to Pixelist without the original photographer knowing it, right? Which seems like it breaks all sorts of copyright laws? Then that original photographer won’t get any of the profits? Seems like something that should be ironclad and a prominent disclaimer the users need to read before joining this site/service. Which I don’t see them bringing up anywhere on their indiegogo…

    (Sorry to be a party pooper. Hopefully they thought of this already.)

  3. I don’t really like this idea for all of the points above.
    Do you like the sites that offer “custom” logos for $50? I think this is sort of the painting equivalent.

  4. I agree with the above posters.

    My guess is that these are being painted in an artist sweatshop in China who aren’t being paid a living wage.

  5. Why not a service that transforms Instagram photos to paint-by-number canvases so “non-artists” can make their own paintings?

  6. Hi all, we appreciate your inquires and questions.

    Here at Pixelist we’ve been open about our artists and future plans to feature them in the press coverage we’ve received. Our artists live in Xiamen, one of China’s richest cities on the southeast coast. They are mostly art university graduates who paint at home. We pay them well above the market price because they are much better than their peers. Though they do not live like Australians or Americans, they are neither struggling nor desperate. And we are helping to increase their income and diversity of work options.

    As for concerns regarding copyright and intellectual property, we are no different from the various other insta-that companies around the web. Between magnets, coffee mugs, calendars, printed canvas, etc., all companies that allow you to physically manufacture an uploaded image explicitly warn against IP violation. We fully agree with this and support the same policy.