How successful was tonight’s Paddles ON! sale of digital art in London? On its face pretty good. Phillips sale totaled £83,500 ($113,636.83), exceeding their high estimate for the sale at £67,150 ($91,392.43). Dig a little deeper, though, and the results of the auction as a whole, which included 22 lots, suggest a still developing market: Five lots went unsold and four sold for under their estimates. Two unremarkable abstract panels that sold for as much as five times their estimate boosted the evenings sale numbers. Michael Staniak’s IMG_885, a monochrome painting made of casting compound and acrylic on board, brought in the most; it sold for £25,000, £20,250 over its £4,750 estimate. Trailing Staniak came Michael Manning’s Chinese Broccolini Torta, a pastel digital print on canvas which sold for £15,000, £10,000 over its £5,000 estimate.
