Call a custom menu into a page

Hey there,

I’m working on this art gallery website,
I created a custom template for my “artists” page, and I want to call a custom menu that I created specifically for this page called “Artists”.
This menu will list all the names of the artists in our gallery.

I want the page to look like that:

Every link in the menu will have the featured image of the page as the thumbnail and the pages title as the artists name.
I did that because it seemed to me like a reasonable way to make the addition of artists flexible on that page,
you’ll basically only need to create a page then add it as a link in “Artists” menu then it automatically appears on the page, let me know if you think there is a better way to make it.

Now I’m having a problem with calling the right menu, is the code that I found wrong?


<?php

/*
Template Name: Artists page
*/

 get_header(); ?>

<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
						
			<?php $menu = wp_get_nav_menu_object( “artists”);

			echo $menu->artists;
			
			wp_nav_menu(array(“menu”=>”artists”)); ?>
		
		<?php endwhile; endif; ?>

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>
	
<?php get_footer(); ?>


Now this shows the Main navigation menu instead of “Artists” menu, does it matter if the value is upper/lower case?
And also will I be able to style it and make the featured image appear as the thumbnail and the whole menu in 3 column?
This custom menu won’t have sub-level pages.

Please help, it would be greatly appreciated, thank you in advance!

OKAY I found how to call a specific menu,

<?php wp_nav_menu( array('menu' => 'Project Nav' )); ?>

now how can I add the featured picture to show as the thumbnail for every page’s link?