Horizon World Art

What does Horizon World Art do?

Horizon World Art is a Paris-based online gallery that uses PuppetVendors on Shopify to manage 68 contemporary artists from one artist portal.

Horizon World Art is an online art gallery that showcases contemporary artists and connects their work with art lovers and collectors worldwide. Alongside selling original artworks through its online gallery, it organizes physical exhibitions in France, particularly in Paris.

The gallery's mission is to make artistic discovery accessible internationally while giving artists professional visibility and real opportunities to exhibit. It is led by founder and director Christian Bokenga, who oversees artistic direction, artist relations, exhibition planning, digital strategy and international development.

The problem

Running an international gallery means managing information from many artists at once. Horizon World Art needed a structured way to centralize:

• Artist accounts. Each artist needed a home inside the gallery, not a row in a spreadsheet.

• Artwork submissions and details. Original works come with titles, descriptions and artistic context that all have to stay accurate.

• Day-to-day administration. Handling all of this by hand would only get slower as the artist community grew.

The trigger was growth. As the gallery's international artist community expanded, Christian wanted to give artists a dedicated professional space with more autonomy over their own artworks and information, while the gallery kept a consistent, well-organized experience for collectors. That called for a scalable artist management system that worked with Shopify.

Why PuppetVendors?

Horizon World Art started fresh, with no prior marketplace platform. The team evaluated options against a clear set of criteria:

• Seamless integration with Shopify

• Ease of use for artists, with a professional artist portal

• Customization to reflect the gallery's identity

• Centralized artwork management and efficient gallery administration

• Support for an international community of artists

• Responsive customer support and a solution that could grow with the gallery

The alternative was managing artists through Shopify with more manual administrative processes. PuppetVendors stood out for its native Shopify integration, its dedicated artist portal and its customization options. It let artists manage their own artworks while giving the gallery one central place to run its growing international community.

How they implemented it

The rollout was led by the gallery's management, with the artist experience as the main focus. It went from decision to live in about a month:

1. Connected PuppetVendors to the gallery's Shopify store.

2. Configured the artist portal and adapted its look to Horizon World Art's visual identity.

3. Created individual artist accounts and organized each artist's information.

4. Set up the process for artwork submissions and connected the portal to existing gallery operations.

5. Tested the workflows step by step before relying on them day to day.

The main challenge was adapting a multi-vendor platform to the needs of a contemporary art gallery. Unlike a typical marketplace, artists present original artworks alongside detailed artistic profiles. The gallery solved this through portal customization, careful configuration of artist information and gradual testing. PuppetVendors' documentation, customization options and technical guidance helped along the way, and the gallery has since enabled PuppetVendors webhooks and the Open API to connect artist data to its other gallery tools.

Results

• 68 artists managed in one place. Every artist account now lives on a dedicated platform connected to the Shopify gallery.

• Greater artist autonomy. Artists have their own professional portal to manage their artwork information and take a more active part in the gallery's digital operations.

• A structured, scalable workflow. The relationship between the gallery and its international artists is now organized, creating a foundation for future growth and more advanced integrations.

• Live in about a month. From decision to live usage, without migrating off another platform.

Christian's advice to others

I would recommend PuppetVendors to art galleries looking to develop a structured artist management system within Shopify. Clearly define your artists' needs, invest time in customizing the portal, and establish efficient workflows from the beginning. And discuss your specific integration and automation requirements with the PuppetVendors team early in the process.

Running a gallery or artist marketplace on Shopify? Start with a 14-day free trial. Plans start at $49/month.