Engineering a Three-Sided
Art Marketplace
to Disrupt the Gallery Model
Context
The traditional art market is notoriously difficult to penetrate. Artists struggle to gain exposure and secure exhibition spaces. Local businesses — cafés, restaurants, hotels, wineries — want beautiful ambiance but lack the tools to curate local art. And collectors want to discover and purchase art in real-world spaces, not intimidating galleries.
Charles Doyon, founder of Lonely Walls, envisioned a digital platform that would solve this by turning any public space into an art venue. The technical challenge was to architect a complex three-sided marketplace that could orchestrate interactions, build trust, and manage financial splits between three entirely different user groups.
“Building this required far more than a simple buyer/seller app — it demanded an ecosystem that bridges the physical and digital worlds of art.”
The Challenge
Breaking the Gallery Monopoly
Three-Sided Marketplace Complexity
Most marketplace platforms handle two sides. Lonely Walls needed three distinct user groups — Artists, Venue Managers, and Collectors — each with entirely different workflows, interfaces, and trust requirements.
Architecture · Multi-Role UX
Real-World Discovery Problem
Connecting physical art exhibitions to digital discovery required geospatial infrastructure. Collectors needed to browse exhibitions happening near them in real time — a live, map-based experience.
Geolocation · Real-Time
Complex Payment Routing
Each sale required dynamically splitting revenue: up to 90% to the artist, 10% platform fee, and optionally a venue cut. This had to be handled securely, transparently, and automatically at scale.
Payments · Revenue Splits
Replacing Manual Coordination
Exhibition arrangements were done over clunky DMs and email. The platform had to replace that chaos with a structured, trust-building matching and orchestration system that both artists and venues would actually use.
Matching · Orchestration
Solution — An Offline-to-Online Ecosystem
Cross-Platform Mobile App
React Native · iOS & AndroidWe chose React Native to deliver a single, high-performance codebase for both iOS and Android — ensuring a native-feeling experience for all three user types while maintaining a single development surface. The dark, art-forward visual identity was engineered to feel like a gallery, not a utility app.
- Distinct onboarding flows for Artists, Venues, and Collectors
- Immersive portfolio browsing with high-resolution artwork display
- Shared codebase — iOS and Android with a single React Native build
Serverless Backend
Google Cloud · ScalableWe architected a fully serverless backend on Google Cloud, enabling the platform to scale elastically as exhibitions and user activity grew across cities — without managing infrastructure. Cloud Functions handled the matching engine, payment orchestration, and notification systems.
- Elastic serverless architecture — scales across cities automatically
- Cloud Functions powering matching, payments, and notifications
- Real-time geospatial queries for active exhibition discovery
Payment Routing Engine
Artists keep up to 90%The financial model was the most technically complex aspect of the platform. Every sale triggers a dynamic revenue split that must route the correct amount to the artist, the venue (if applicable), and retain the platform fee — all in a single in-app transaction, securely and transparently.
- Artists retain up to 90% of each sale — transparently displayed
- Dynamic commission splits across artist, venue, and platform
- Secure in-app purchasing with full transaction audit trail
Core Platform Features
Four engineered pillars that make Lonely Walls the infrastructure layer for the physical art world.
Three-Tiered Architecture
Distinct, secure workflows for Artists (portfolio & apply), Venue Managers (approve exhibitions), and Collectors (browse & buy) — all within one app.
Geospatial Discovery Map
A live, map-based browsing experience letting collectors find physical art exhibitions currently active in their local area.
Proprietary Matching Engine
Automated logic that pairs artists with appropriate venues and formalizes exhibition arrangements — replacing manual DM coordination.
Dynamic Payment Splits
In-app purchasing with automated revenue routing across artist, venue, and platform — ensuring fair-trade economics for creators.
Business Impact
Successfully launched in 2021, Lonely Walls transformed everyday commercial spaces into discoverable art venues.
of local exhibitions organised through the platform, proving the offline-to-online model works at city scale
of every sale goes directly to the artist — a transparent, fair-trade model that bypasses gallery monopolies entirely
Successfully served Artists, Venue Managers, and Collectors within a single, cohesive platform — a challenge other vendors deemed “too difficult”
Built for the Creator Economy
By overcoming UX and architectural challenges that other vendors deemed “too difficult,” MaxyLogic delivered a highly stable, multi-sided marketplace capable of scaling across cities — giving local artists a genuine alternative to the traditional gallery monopoly.
Market Disruption
By automating curation, matching, and payments, the platform bypassed traditional gallery monopolies and empowered local creators with fair-trade economics.
Charles Doyon
Founder, Lonely Walls
Envisioned turning any public space into an art venue — MaxyLogic engineered the infrastructure to make that vision a reality.
Have a Complex Marketplace Idea?
At MaxyLogic, we engineer the complex digital infrastructure that brings visionary marketplaces to life. If your platform requires multi-sided architecture, geolocation, or intricate payment flows — let's talk.