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About asart

asart is the home of contemporary paintings and sculpture from China and South East Asia and artwork by indigenous Australian artists. With more than 30 years of experience, tertiary qualifications in Fine Art, extensive networks of both artists and international dealers, and committed to developing for his clients "collections rather than accumulations" of artwork, our director Anthony Smith is able to offer a rare level of experience, judgement and connoisseurship.

Every year asart introduces new work from Asia/Pacific to international buyers via major art fairs and exhibitions. In 2011, at the Beijing International Art Exposition, asart received the "Most Influential Gallery" award from the Ministry of Culture, People's Republic of China, in recognition of the quality and originality of the artists we exhibited.

The world's art collectors are now acquiring works from China and South East Asia's finest artists while they are still affordable. Their quality and originality assure that art from this region is the new frontier of artistic discovery. View fine examples of Asian art


Indigenous (Aboriginal) artwork from Australia is one of the great movements of world art, yet it is based on traditions that go back some 40,000 years. Arguably, Australia has more internationally recognised artists per head of population than any country on earth!

Contemporary and modern South East Asian investment art
South East Asian art
The entire world is rich with art and culture and it is best to enjoy as much of it as we possibly can. As well as famous pieces that have been known the world over for many generations, new artists are also contributing to the art that is available today. Anthony Smith acquires outstanding contemporary Asian wall art along with pieces from Australasia from the leading artists in the region.

With over 30 years of experience in selecting pieces from the very best artists in the region, Anthony has seen asart grow into one of the most respected galleries in the world today. With a network that is helping asart to obtain the very best modern South East Asian art, we have been supplying some of the finest public and private collections throughout the world.

With offices, galleries and representatives introducing the best in modern Asian art in locations across the world, asart are bringing Asian and Australasian art to collectors all over the world. With a guarantee that every single piece of art that is sold is genuine, investors will find asart to be one of the best resources for investments in art available.


Contemporary South East Asian art
For the very finest art from the greatest contemporary artists in Australasia and Asia, asart are the people to speak to. Established by art connoisseur Anthony Smith and with over 30 years of experience in locating and sourcing art from the region, asart know how to deliver quality every time. Having begun establishing contacts within the field of Asian contemporary art in the 1970s, asart are affiliated with the best artists, collectors and distributors in the region today.

With representatives in locations all over the world, asart are delighted to introduce collectors and investors from every corner of the globe to the best contemporary Asian art that can be found. With so much experience and an eye for spotting truly magnificent pieces, asart can be counted on to select only art that will compliment even the finest of collections.

Whether you looking for art to add to public displays in galleries or museums, or you are a private investor hoping to appreciate fine Asian art from your home, asart will have something very special for you. For the best Asian art in London and other major cities, asart are more than happy to be of service.


Asian investment art
Identifying the best art is often something that needs a trained and talented eye and asart have among the best that can be found. With decades of experience in sourcing and obtaining the best from artists from the Asian region, Anthony Smith has been delighting investors and collectors for many years. Anthony's experience and contacts help to ensure that every single piece of art that is selected by asart is genuine and of the very best quality.

With new pieces of South East Asian investment art being obtained all the time, Anthony Smith is always helping to establish some of the finest collections that can be found. With Anthony's vast experience and skill in choosing art from Asia collectors and investors will find his insight and advice something that will help them establish a very special collection indeed.

If you would like to contact Anthony directly then he will be more than happy to receive an email from you. Alternatively, representatives from asart in offices around the world will be more than happy to help you in any way that they can.

Investment Asian art
Finding pieces of art that represent a great investment is something that will take skill and experience. Not all art will turn out to be a sound investment so it is wise to turn to the help and advice of the experts whenever you can. With their knowledge of art and contacts in the field, connoisseurs will be able to help you find the best modern Asian investment art that can be found.

Anthony Smith has been helping investors to acquire art for more than 30 years with clients that are both private investors and buyers for public galleries. Such is Anthony's experience and knowledge that he has been awarded the prize of most influential gallery from the Chinese Ministry of Culture.

With guarantees that all pieces obtained are genuine and by the best artists today, you can be confident that through asart your art investment will be a wise one. Anthony Smith and representatives of asart have been supplying to investors and collectors for many years making them among the very best suppliers and advisors of art that can be found.


Southeast Asian arts, the literary, performing, and visual arts of Southeast Asia. Although the cultural development of the area was once dominated by Indian influence, a number of cohesive traits predate the Indian influence. Wet-rice (or padi) agriculture, metallurgy, navigation, ancestor cults, and worship associated with mountains were both indigenous and widespread, and certain art forms not derived from India—for example, batik textiles, gamelan orchestras, and the wayang puppet theatre—remain popular.

The term Southeast Asia refers to the huge peninsula of Indochina and the extensive archipelago of what is sometimes called the East Indies. The region can be subdivided into mainland Southeast Asia and insular Southeast Asia. The political units contained in this region are Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The Philippines originally was not included, because Philippine history has not followed the general historical pattern of Southeast Asia, but, because of its geographic position and the close affinities of its cultures with the cultures of Southeast Asia, it is now usually regarded as the eastern fringe of Southeast Asia.


The arts of Southeast Asia have no affinity with the arts of other areas. Dance in much of Southeast Asia also includes movement of the hands as well as the feet, to express the dance's emotion and meaning of the story that the ballerina is going to tell the audience. Most of Southeast Asian introduced dance into their court; in particular, Cambodian royal ballet represented them in the early 7th century before the Khmer Empire, which was highly influenced by Indian Hinduism. Apsara Dance, famous for strong hand and feet movement, is a great example of Hindu symbolic dance. Puppetry and shadow plays were also a favoured form of entertainment in past centuries as the famous one known as Wayang from Indonesia. The arts and literature in some of Southeast Asia is quite influenced by Hinduism brought to them centuries ago.

The Tai, coming late into Southeast Asia, brought with them some Chinese artistic traditions, but they soon shed them in favour of the Khmer and Mon traditions, and the only indications of their earlier contact with Chinese arts were in the style of their temples, especially the tapering roof, and in their lacquerware.

Indonesia, despite conversion to Islam which opposes certain forms of art, has retained many forms of Hindu-influenced practices, culture, art and literature. An example is the *Wayang Kulit (Shadow Puppet) and literature like the Ramayana. This is also true for mainland Southeast Asia (excluding Vietnam). Dance movements, Hindu gods, and arts were also fused into Thai, Khmer, Lao and Burmese cultures. It has been pointed out that Khmer and Indonesian classical arts were concerned with depicting the life of the gods, but to the Southeast Asian mind the life of the gods was the life of the peoples themselves—joyous, earthy, yet divine.


South Asian Art and Culture
The Indian subcontinent forms an inverted triangle extending from the snow-bound Himalayan ranges of Asia toward the equator. Known also as South Asia, the area includes the countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan; artistically, the Tibetan highlands also form part of the region. Stretching some 1,800 miles from north to south, and almost the same distance from west to east, the area is home to an ancient and diverse group of cultures.


The artistic remains, consisting of sacred image as well as sensuous, often flamboyant figures of women, emphasize the intermingling of the sacred and the secular in the art of India.

India is the largest single nation of South Asia. Its currently twenty-four states exhibit a cultural diversity comparable to that seen among the nations of Europe. The Tamil region of South India has a language, script, musical tradition, dance forms, and an artistic heritage that are quite distinct from those found in, say, Punjab in the north. It is this diversity that makes the artistic traditions of India so complex and rewarding to follow.


Celebrating the Thrilling Art Scenes of Southeast Asia

With globalisation, contemporary art became a worldwide phenomenon. The notion of contemporary art as a ‘Western product’ no longer applies. Art hubs are not limited to a select group of cultural capitals in the West, but have mushroomed all over the world. Cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Mumbai, Sydney, Dubai and Istanbul epitomise this tectonic shift in the cultural landscape. Asian countries may not share the same culture, religion or political climate, but their rising economic importance on the world stage has seen the development of contemporary art markets in the region that only a few years ago would have been inconceivable.

Two decades ago, Asian artists had to travel to the West to find freedom of expression and unfettered creativity, but due to rapid economic liberalisation and increasing social mobility in the region today, countries like China and India have established their own thriving art scenes and are now major players in the global market place. But China and India are only the most visible manifestation of a more widespread flowering of the arts across Asia. Southeast Asian art, which for the past decade has been gradually gathering momentum, is ready to make a breakthrough on the world stage. Spectacular exhibitions of Southeast Asian art are regularly showcased in Paris, New York, and London by leading museums like the Guggenheim and Tate Modern, while the successful participation of Singapore at the Venice Biennale in recent years and the ground-breaking presentation of contemporary Indonesian art at Art Stage Singapore in 2013, are evidence of an unprecedented level of interest and curiosity surrounding contemporary Southeast Asia art.

Contemporary art is a global ‘language’, which assumes as its starting point a complete rejection of prescribed ideological or aesthetic orthodoxies. Contemporary art, which in its character is international and cosmopolitan, supports the idea of art that is free from nationalist agendas. Nevertheless, contemporary Southeast Asian art clearly does not exist in a vacuum – it can never be entirely divorced from the political and cultural circumstances in which it is made. Nor should it be; history demonstrates that artists everywhere and all times have an important critical role to play in the life and politics of a nation. This, however, should not be seen as a divisive issue when it comes to the promotion of Southeast Asian art as a regional phenomenon. Rather than see Southeast Asia as fragmented into a number of independent and competing art scenes, artists in the region would be better served if they were understood to be coming from a part of the world that is extremely rich in contemporary creativity, and which might even become the next trend-setter in the global art scene. Imagine the Venice Biennale with a Southeast Asian pavilion presenting the best and most stunning of the region; how sensational and how satisfying that would be!

Southeast Asia has many high calibre artists, there is no question about that, but many countries in the region do not have the art infrastructure equivalent to that of the long-established art capitals of the West. This lack of infrastructure is not something that needs to hold the region back. Singapore’s geography, combined with its economic and political stability and its sophisticated, cosmopolitan society, make it a natural choice as the art centre in the region. Art Stage Singapore, together with the Singapore Art Museum and, especially, the much anticipated new National Art Gallery, will provide the commercial and academic influence and authority needed to transform Southeast Asia into the next major global art region. The ingredients are all here, all that is now required is the collective will and effort to make it a reality.

Similar info can be seen here - modern Asian art