Safe Sex Van Door by emerging artist Yuming at the live art auction in Episode 1 of The Big Deal with Steph McGovern, featuring Bella + Ollie

The Big Deal with Steph McGovern Episode 1: What We Learned About Selling Art by Emerging Artists

From choosing emerging artists to representing them at live auction...

Watching the first episode of The Big Deal with Steph McGovern on BBC Two finally air felt slightly surreal. We had lived through that day almost a year ago, but seeing it edited together and watching it back alongside everyone else brought back so many of the emotions we had forgotten about. The nerves, the excitement, the pressure, and in particular, one very large van door.

The first challenge took us straight into the world of graduate and emerging art. Fourteen artists from some of the UK's leading art schools, two artists for us to represent, and then the challenge of taking their work into a live art auction and trying to sell it. It was one of our first experiences of having to think about art commercially and understand the art market, rather than simply choosing something because we personally loved it.

Bella and Ollie episode 1 The biG Deal with Steph McGovern BBC with art dealer Matt Carey Williams

Choosing our emerging artists

One of the artists we chose was Yuming, a Chinese-born artist based in London who graduated with an MA in Contemporary Photography from Central Saint Martins in 2025. His practice moves across photography, sculpture, installation and video, exploring themes including race, intimacy, design and contemporary gay culture.

The work that caught our attention was his Safe Sex Van Door — a photograph printed onto an actual van door. It was completely different from anything else we'd been looking at, and we loved the way Yuming was using photography in such an unexpected format. There was something about the combination of contemporary photography, sculpture and the story behind the piece that immediately made us stop and look.

Our hesitation wasn't whether we liked the work. It was whether we could work out how to sell it. It was a huge piece and, thinking about the audience we expected at the art auction, we struggled to picture it hanging in someone's home. We were caught between the art we were passionate about and the art we thought we could realistically sell.

Our second artist, Cecilia Baldauf-Clark, couldn't have felt more different. Cecilia is an Oxford-born painter who graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Glasgow School of Art, creating paintings around nostalgia, family and those hazy memories of places and people that feel familiar but slightly dreamlike. We were immediately drawn to her use of colour and composition and could easily imagine someone connecting with her work in their own home.

Choosing the artists was exciting, but it also felt like a huge responsibility. These were emerging artists and recent art school graduates at the beginning of their careers, and we weren't simply choosing artworks. We were choosing artists we were going to represent and ultimately try to sell.
Yuming Safe Sex Van Door contemporary artwork featured on The Big Deal Episode 1

Learning to think differently about selling art

This was where our mentor, Matt Carey Williams, really challenged us. Matt had previously worked in auction houses and now runs his own gallery in London, supporting emerging artists, so he brought a huge amount of experience as an art dealer and a different perspective on the relationship between artists, collectors and the wider art market.

When we explained our hesitation around Yuming's work, his advice was to "turn the way we were thinking about it on its head." Rather than asking whether we could imagine the work in someone's home, we needed to think about where else someone might fall in love with it.

Suddenly, we were thinking about restaurants, bars, nightclubs and commercial spaces where the scale, subject and story behind the work could actually become part of its appeal. We didn't need to change the artwork; we needed to think differently about its potential audience.

That was a really important shift for us. We realised that loving a piece of contemporary art and knowing exactly who is going to buy it are two very different things. Sometimes the challenge isn't finding an obvious buyer, but thinking creatively about where the work could live and how you can connect an emerging artist with the right audience.

Our first live art auction

Then came the auction. It was held by Filthy Fox in a pop-up warehouse in East London, and it was our first time ever selling artwork at auction. We were right at the back of the room watching everything unfold, waiting nervously for our artists to come up.

It was incredibly tense. We weren't just watching to see whether we'd made a sale; we were watching what everyone else was doing too, because the amount we made would determine whether we stayed in the competition.

There was also a real sense of responsibility towards the artists. Before the auction, we'd only had a few minutes with each artist to understand their work and their story — something that wasn't really shown in the episode. We wanted to make sure we could communicate that properly to potential buyers, particularly because these were graduates and emerging artists entering the contemporary art market at the beginning of their careers.
Art at Filthy Fox Auction by Cecilia on Episode 1 The big Deal with Steph McGovern Bella and Ollie emerging artist

Then nobody bid

Cecilia's work sold at its reserve price, which was a huge relief. Then Yuming's photograph came up and there was no interest. And then came the van door.

Nothing.

The room was silent, and we were devastated. Not just because we needed to make money to stay in the competition, but because we genuinely wanted to help Yuming sell his work. We'd spent time with him, heard the story behind the piece and wanted to give him that first step into the art market. For a moment, it felt like we'd taken the wrong risk.

Then, just when we thought the live art auction had moved on, we were asked to bring the van door back.

We were completely confused. And then someone started bidding.

“Posh” ended up buying it, and suddenly the piece we'd been so worried about selling became the piece that saved us. Across the three pieces we sold, we made £915 in commission, which was enough to keep us out of the bottom three and in the competition.

The funny thing is, we later found out that “Posh” was actually a friend of the auctioneer, and the van door is now hanging in his home. We had spent so much time wondering whether we could imagine someone putting it in their home, only for exactly that to happen.

What Episode 1 taught us about emerging art

Looking back now, the biggest lesson wasn't really about auctions. It was about trusting your instinct and then thinking creatively about how to sell what you believe in.

We don't think every piece of art by an emerging artist will have an obvious buyer, particularly when you're working with graduate artists who don't yet have an established market. That's part of what makes discovering emerging and contemporary art so exciting. You're often seeing an artist before their career has fully developed, rather than looking at something with years of sales history behind it.

The experience changed the way we think about sellability. We don't want “Can we sell this?” to stop us from choosing something we genuinely believe in. Instead, we want to ask who could fall in love with it, where it could live and what it is about the artist or work that someone else might connect with.

Sometimes that might be a home. Sometimes it might be a restaurant, hotel, creative workspace or somewhere completely unexpected. The important thing is understanding the work well enough to find the right audience for it.

 Bella and Ollie Episode 1 The Big Deal With Steph McGovern sax sex door with artist Yuming BBC2

Why supporting emerging artists matters to us

One of the things we loved most about the challenge was getting to know artists who were right at the beginning of their careers. The art world can be incredibly competitive when you're trying to establish yourself as a young or emerging artist, and having someone believe in your work can give an artist a huge amount of validation and momentum. Seeing that first sale happen — knowing that someone has looked at something you've created and decided they want to live with it — feels significant. It's something we want to continue supporting through Bella + Ollie.

We don't believe great art only comes from established names. There is so much talent coming out of art schools, studios and creative communities across the UK, and part of what we love about what we do is discovering emerging artists and helping more people find them.

Talent doesn't only come from established names. Sometimes it comes from an artist who is still figuring out where their work belongs in the world.

“Definitely going to take more risks”

At the end of Episode 1, after everything we'd just been through, we said we were “definitely going to take more risks”. Watching that back now made us laugh, but we meant it. The experience taught us that taking a risk doesn't necessarily mean making a reckless decision. Sometimes it means trusting your instinct when there isn't an obvious answer, and being willing to think a little harder about where something could belong.

For us, passion has to come first. If we genuinely believe in an artist and their work, we'd rather think creatively about how we can find the right audience for it than walk away simply because the answer isn't immediately obvious.

And perhaps that's what Episode 1 of The Big Deal with Steph McGovern brought home to us most. You never really know who is going to fall in love with a piece of art. Sometimes you just have to believe in it enough to give it a chance.

Bella + Ollie x

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Who are the artists featured in The Big Deal Episode 1?

Episode 1 of The Big Deal with Steph McGovern focuses on 14 graduate artists from art schools across the UK. For the challenge, each pair selected two artists to represent and sell at a live auction. We chose emerging artists Yuming and Cecilia Baldauf-Clark.
What was the graduate art challenge on The Big Deal?

The first challenge of The Big Deal centred around graduate and emerging art. The contestants had to choose two artists to represent, negotiate a commission split and then sell their artwork at auction. The challenge tested their ability to identify artists they believed in while also understanding how to market and sell their work.
Who is Yuming, the artist behind the Safe Sex Van Door?

Yuming is a Chinese-born emerging artist based in London who graduated with an MA in Contemporary Photography from Central Saint Martins in 2025. His multidisciplinary practice spans photography, sculpture, installation and video and explores themes including race, intimacy, design and contemporary gay culture.
Who is Matt Carey Williams?

Matt Carey Williams is an experienced art dealer and former auction-house specialist previously working at Sotheby's and Christies. He now runs his own gallery in Marlyebone, London. He works with and supports emerging artists and was the guest mentor for the graduate art challenge in Episode 1 of The Big Deal with Steph McGovern.

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