In part one of this exclusive interview with New York’s youngest gallery owner, Strada Gallery founder Paul Hill, recently featured in 2023’s Forbes 30 under 30, delves into the life and experiences of an individual whose journey from studying computer science to Strada has been nothing short of extraordinary. From growing up in New York City to founding Strada, the path taken is a testament to diverse experiences and a commitment to positive change.
Hey Paul, it’s great to be here speaking with you today; I would like you to start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and growing up in New York City.
While growing up, most of the key moments and experiences that shape who I am take place in New York City, but also in other places across the world. I was born and raised in Harlem; my family still lives there.
I went to boarding school in Asheville, North Carolina, My first solo trip by myself at 16 in Nicaragua. I lived in Peru for six months by myself right after that, and then I liked my experiences of living in places. I learned so much from every single community that I’ve been a part of. A lot of plays into having been in so many places, like meeting so many people, that I’ve developed a certain level of intuition. That also plays into the things I create and the stuff I put energy into.
Peru and Nicaragua. What made you choose these places?
My dad’s, you know, very focused on making sure that I’d be as experienced in the world as possible, but doing so in a way that’s as affordable as possible.
Yeah, so Nicaragua at the time was the most affordable place I could go to perfect my Spanish and become fluent while also living and having solid experiences for one month. I was on this Remote Island in the middle of this lake.
Nothing happens. I mean, there are two volcanos that people climb, so I was mostly there, literally learning Spanish. The following month, I was at an exciting beach town.
You come back from Peru, and after you come back, you have a week in between, and then you’re off to college. Now, you’re in this educational setting, studying for months and focusing on your path. What did you study while in college?
Computer science.
So that comes full circle back to what you do now, and that makes complete sense. So, understanding that you went to college, you returned to New York after you attended college in Iowa.
Yes.
During college, you dropped out?
I dropped out when Strada started to pick up.
Really?
Yeah, I told myself that once we secure our first investment, I’m going to drop out and solely focus on Strada.
So, let’s take a step to look at your creations before Strada. Pronto is an app that gave accessibility to legal aid during a time when it was most needed, during Black Lives Matter.
Yeah.
Could you tell us a bit about it?
So, during the height of Black Lives Matter, I think it’s also just the peak of internet activism. So, we’re seeing a lot of people on Instagram and Twitter post these infographics where they’re like, this is what you can do. This is what you can do. This is what you can do.
I’m like, why are people flooding people’s timelines with information that’s impossible to track down later?
Why is there no centralized location where you can see all this information depending on whether you want to donate your time and energy as a volunteer or donate your money?
Why is there not a spot for this?
That just makes everything so much more efficient, so I looked into it, and I was like, oh, there are zero applications right now that are providing resources for people fighting for Black Lives Matter.
I was like, okay, I’ll build it. So, I started building it with a couple of other engineers whom I went to Grinnell throughout that summer; we were building it and providing organizations fighting for Black Lives Matter in every major city across the United States. So, it provides organizations that you can send money to or can sign up and volunteer with. You can do all that through the app. It also had educational resources, so if you wanted to read and educate yourself on Black radicalism literature.
Also, if you’re arrested and you need free legal aid, you can do that for the app.
That was the first stage of the first tech thing I ever built. It did very well. I had many downloads, and it’s more than the first couple of weeks alone.
That was also my first experience, like getting press and then like my first experience, like sharing something with the world like, hey guys, this is something like built, check it out and then getting a really good reception with it. It was fun. It was also necessary.
I want to expand upon it down the road when I have more resources for it and expand Pronto beyond Black Lives Matter, but also including, you know, resources for people to fight for other things.
I won the Davis Projects for Peace grant from that.
Congratulations.
Well, not won, I earned it, I received it.
I used that grant for Strada because I saw a greater need.
Shortly after Pronto, leading to the creation of Strada how did you start developing your eye for art?
I started; I mean, I’ve always been looking at art. I’ve always looked at art since I was a kid, just like going to museums. So, every week, I would look at art.
In high school, I started using Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. We’d be sharing art constantly, and that’s when I can start to, like, you know, I guess, curate my own art experiences. So, I curate my own personalized artwork, stuff that I like.
Then I met people in real life who are also in New York City and these people are actually making art. I started learning the difference between, like, being like an art lover and being an artist, being a creative person and being, you know, an artist who’s actively creating stuff because it’s like a huge difference.
It’s just like another step in, like maturing as a person. So, with that, I just started observing for the longest. I was just an observer, just like learning about different people’s practices and like learning about what everyone is making, like how they’re making it because, like, I didn’t have like classes or like, you know, education to dive into that. In high school, I took art classes that were mandatory and I almost failed those classes. It’s just so funny to think about it now
But with Strada, it was just like from the jump. I was like, what do we need to do with Strada? what we needed to do with Strada is obtain as many artists as possible. So that’s what we started off doing. Just like reaching out to every single artist I knew and just like, hey, I’m making this thing. I want you to be a part of it. Do you want to be a part of it?
To every single person, regardless of whether or not we like the artwork.
Once we had hundreds of artists who were interested in this and would possibly want to just make accounts and stuff, then we kind of reeled it back in because we realized at that point, like, we were not taking curation into account. We want to build something that’s sustaining in the long term.
It’s not about just blowing up instantly. It’s about, you know, having a well-curated platform that people like paying attention to and respect because it’s not just about providing a platform for anyone and everyone to sell whatever. It’s very specific about providing these resources for artists who, traditionally, had been the only route through galleries and art dealers, where typically they’ll lose 50% off of commissions.
It’s a platform and a resource to provide the tools for artists to pursue independent careers while also being fully supported. So, people can still have prestige and career growth now as independent artists and retain a large majority of the proceeds.
So, with Strada, you started reaching out to tons of artists, and you had a positive response with everything coming back. So basically, Strada seems to be founded on granted accessibility to collectors and artists alike. Now, can you tell us a bit about the mission of Strada and how you’ve started to create the bridge between the digital and the physical art world?
You will hear the story of my passions, which always start with identifying a problem and providing a solution.
When I started like, hearing more about NFTs and the digital world and digital ownership and learning about the communities and cultures there, I started seeing that the culture and NFT communities are everything that the physical art world is like.
The physical art world is traditionally and almost like across every single circle, at least that I’ve stepped foot into, extremely pretentious and gatekept in how they decide to let in like one who they even decide to give the time of day to listen to. There’s very little sharing and transfer of information to teach people how to support themselves or grow their careers.
It’s very much figuring it out yourself or just having the privilege and connections to get there.
Whereas in the digital art world and like the NFT spaces, it’s very much a welcoming environment, and it’s extremely transparent; every single transaction is on the blockchain, a permanent ledger that everyone can look into to just see who’s buying what, how much did it sell for it.
Whereas in the physical art world, you don’t see that at all. It’s actually a very hidden, ambiguous process to figure out even how to purchase an artwork. So, you’re seeing a lot of people who like the physical art world but are not comfortable at all buying artwork. I’m not talking about people like seasoned collectors, not talking about people who have been part of the art world forever and coming up with people who love the artwork and really want to purchase an artwork and become a part of the art world, and they just don’t know how to.
It’s because there aren’t any welcoming, inviting spaces just onboarding people and teaching people how to become part of the art world.
So yeah, there are so many benefits in terms of culture. We even started talking about financials and ownership and progressing your career as an artist.
I’m solely talking about culture and community and NFT spaces that provided everything that physical art worlds missing.
Now, let’s get down to financials.
So, in the physical art world, most artists lose 50% of their commissions when they sell their artwork via an art gallery. For Strada, the most that we have ever asked for the commission is 30%.
So, an artist still retains 70% for in-person exhibitions. Online artists receive 88% of sales via the online platform, and Strada donates 1% of our proceeds back to our artist grant fund.
What we’re seeing in the NFT spaces is that for the first time, artists are receiving royalties on resold artworks, which is huge because we’re seeing in the physical art world, you know, a young emerging artist can sell their artwork for, like, in between like, you know, five to $10,000. And by the time they’re mid-career, or actually, let’s talk about it. By the time they’re late-career artists, that artwork has the potential to increase value by ten times. The artist will not see a single dime or penny from that, even though the reason that artwork has increasing value is because of their hard work and creating more and more amazing artworks and also networking with different people and making sure that their artwork is seen at the value that they know it should be at.
But now, in the NFT spaces, we’re seeing artists will finally reap the benefits of that, like they put out an artwork itself. As their career grows and as their artworks grow in value, they will keep receiving royalties from these resold artworks for as long as they live and as long as it’s connected to their account, which is huge.
