Sadly, that something is not to create art, I’ll happily leave that to the contemporary artists I feature here each week. But I did roll up my sleeves, haul bags of soil across the yard, and worked with my mom on my garden (she’s a Master Gardener! Reply here for consult requests during her next visit in autumn). While the Negroni O’Clock hours thankfully kept arriving, this week I really just needed dirt under my fingernails more than I needed another glass of wine at a vernissage.

When I came back to my inbox and started pulling works for this issue, I noticed the artworks I kept selecting were grounding. This week’s picks feel introspective and stabilizing: Abbi Kenny’s martini olives; Ron Isaacs building a nest out of painted plywood; Lucy Jones’ title “Just Looking, Just Checking On You”; Pace Taylor’s perfect soft pastel “The Nights are Now”. These works feel so right for the reset moment after a burnout month, now that I’m fishing my phone out from the river.

Also if you don’t already own a Brian Oakes work yet, I’m not sure what’s the matter with you, but the lamp below is accessibly priced and a brilliant addition to any collection and home design. There’s literally one at the Pocketbook Hotel Show Room in Hudson so I'm not sure how else to convey the extent of its chicness.

This is a paid issue, which means the full selections below are for paid subscribers. If you’ve been on the fence, this is a good one to come in for! The average retail of the below works is under $8,000, and each week I try to keep featured works around the $10k mark.

REMINDER: The Campus (and the café and bookstore I help operate) opens at the end of June. More details on the opening celebrations for paid subscribers coming soon!

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We have many new subscribers since last week’s issue, so I want to take a moment to say hi and welcome. Every week, I share a curated, punchy selection of contemporary art (with prices!) by emerging artists whose practices I am discovering and following. If you are interested in buying one of the works below or have a question, just reply to this email.

Every fourth issue is free, and in the three weeks between, the artwork selections are reserved for paid subscribers. Consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the research and curatorial work behind this publication, and to receive every artist selection each week.

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For everyone who successfully participated in the fairs last week, congratulations! Are you digging out of your willfully ignored inboxes as well? I heard a lot of good news on booths as I walked around Independent, NADA, Frieze, Future, and 1-54. Overall it seemed like sales were slower but still closing, and I’m gratified to hear so many people’s collections were enriched by acquisitions last week.

My sister and I have this saying (usually applied to painfully overdecorated spaces) that “our eyes have nowhere to rest”. This saying also applies to art fairs. At the end of the week, you have seen hundreds of works in a compressed window, standing in booths with crowds and noise and visual stimulation.

Fairs are genuinely one of the best ways to discover the most art in the least amount of time, and they are also completely the wrong conditions for actually absorbing any of it. So I have decided that this week’s issue is our collective recovery issue. The strongest collections begin with paying attention and that attention is always recoverable (just ask my inbox).

Veronika Pausova’s paintings are each a visual puzzle; Ren Light Pan’s process remains a mystery; Zuriel Waters we NEED to see detail images of the sewn canvases; and just try to convince me that your mind isn’t boggled by the CAST GLASS Alice Gong Xiaowen piece made from found photo albums (hot tip: she’s showing at Art Basel next month).

I could go on about the reasons I have included each of the works below, but I’ll leave the rest to your own curiosity and discovery. Reach out and let me know which artworks you would like to know more about. I can’t wait to hear what you think. Enjoy!

Ren Light Pan

palm (0206), 2025

Ink, water, infrared light and canvas

34 x 24 inches

$7,000

Veronika Pausova

Dwelling (Anchors), 2026

Oil on canvas

29 x 25 inches

$12,500

Zuriel Waters

Untitled, April, 2026

Pigment dispersion and acrylic on sewn canvas

44 x 84 inches

$12,000

Alice Gong Xiaowen

Untitled, 2026

Cast glass

9.5 x 7.25 x 0.75 inches

$3,400

Gabe Cortese

A Premonition, 2026

Oil on panel

16 x 16 inches

$5,500 + $200 frame

Vincent Pocsik

Hand with Purple Cone Flower, 2026

Carved walnut, bronze

14 x 6 ¾ x 4 ½ inches

$8,500

Dan Perkins

Lunar Void, 2026

Oil on panel

36 x 60 inches

$11,000

Rives Granade

Darkness Beginning to Trace the Light, 2025

Clay scratchboard

24 x 18 inches

$6,200

Emily Ponsonby

Salvia Nemorosa, 2026

Beeswax and oil on panel

8 1/2 x 11 inches

$6,800

Maude Maris

Petit Chien Blanc, 2026

Oil on canvas

13 x 9 1/2 inches

$3,600

Molly Rose Lieberman

The wind wakes me up, 2025

Acrylic, oil, cold wax, inkjet print, photograph on linen in artist’s frame

26⅛ x 26⅝ inches

$15,000

If you enjoy weekly access to artist selections,
consider becoming a paid subscriber!
And if you know someone building a thoughtful collection,
feel free to forward this issue. 💚

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For context, NYC galleries save the May exhibition slot for their strongest presentations on purpose. This is a week when the city is crawling with (some post-Venice) collectors, curators, and writers in town for the fairs and auctions, so it is a very competitive time for galleries to put their best foot forward with knock-out exhibitions.

This newsletter has always been a space for me to sift through the noise and share with you my curated selection of said inundated inbox previews. While this week I have included a couple of artists I can’t wait to see at the fairs, my selections actually yielded incredibly strong artists with gallery exhibitions.

Even though I’m an extrovert, I personally find art fairs way too frenzied and hurried and just not at all how I like to look at art. As a function in the ecosystem, fairs are hands down the best way to discover the most art in the least amount of time. The trick is knowing when to attend the fair to actually spend time looking at the art and speaking to dealers (pro tip: it’s not VIP day, and no, no one is clocking if they saw you or not during the 11am VIP access hour at Frieze. They’re clocking if you actually buy art.) Also as a New Yorker who detests waiting in lines, my chef’s kiss art fair hour is the first hour on a public day. You’re welcome.

I also thought it was interesting that this year Art Basel next month implemented a rule that galleries must withhold at least one key artwork from their preview. The only way a collector will know about and see the artwork is if they attend the fair in person. I really love this rule for enforcing in-person viewing experiences.

So I am thrilled to share my selections of artworks this week from exhibitions that you should go see and collect from this week. Spend time in the galleries with space to breathe and engage and really look at the art.

A few places I’ll be this week if you want to find me in the wild! First off, thank you to everyone who joined last night’s ArtStack panel that I moderated at People’s with four of my favorite art writers on Substack (Julie Brener Davich, Tatum Dooley, Georgia Stylianides and Sibilla Maiarelli). On Saturday at 1:30pm I am moderating the NADA Collects panel at the fair “The Point of Sale”, all ticket-holding fair guests can join! And out of all the fairs this week, I am most looking forward to Independent and I will probably walk that fair twice.

One more thing before we get into the selections: if you were reading this newsletter last fall, you may remember my issue on the Saint Laurent Rive Droite exhibition in Paris. This week, they are back with a New York iteration featuring artworks by Rachel Rossin, whose work I have been following closely for several years, and I could not leave her out of this week’s selections. Enjoy!

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As a writer, collector, advisor, and curator of contemporary art, I spend a colossal amount of time thinking about physical spaces. There is something special that happens when you stand in a room full of art, especially if that room is also full of people who are also there to appreciate the art.

When you connect with an artwork, the hairs on the back of your neck prickle and your awareness shifts. Honestly, you just start to absorb information so differently than scrolling on a screen.

Tonight is an event that creates an opportunity to stop scrolling and start socializing in rooms full of art: Mystic Caviar. If you have never attended one of these mystical monthly gatherings, know that it is hands down one of my favorite rooms to be in.

Everyone who shows up is new to everyone else: from different corners of the city, different sides of inside and outside the art world. But all the guests who attend share a curiosity for connection and meaning. Plus who isn’t curious to hear what the tarot readings will reveal?

This month’s edition of Mystic Caviar features three gallerists I have selected to share their artist booth presentations ahead of next week’s art fair madness.

So if you love first access to art, elevated canapés, and faith in finding larger-than-life meaning, this is your room.

Buy Mystic Caviar tickets here.

If you can’t attend, I am so excited to share the works below, which I selected around these themes embodied by Mystic Caviar evenings:

• Karla Knight, whose work weaves astronomy, the occult, and invented languages into a single practice

• Josi, whose work brings together river water, botanical pigments, and soil from Quilombo dos Ausentes to hold land, ritual, memory, and embodied knowledge in a single object

• Gozié Ojini, whose altered brass instruments are about breath, sound, conversations and listening

• Robell Awake, whose featured work below is a literal chair: a sculptural seat signifying gathering, craft, and the creation of cultural memory

• Maryam Yousif, whose practice is rooted in myth, intimacy, and Mesopotamian mythologies blended with modernism

I hope you enjoy all twelve of the artists below as much as I have enjoyed discovering their practices. As always, please reach out with any questions or if you would like to see additional examples of the work!

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I am especially taken this week with the discovery of Crystalle Lacouture’s current show, which takes its cue from H.A. Rey’s 1952 book on constellations. The idea of making something vast feel portable and relatable is the right mindset going into fair season.

Below is suggested rhetoric to use on booth when wandering the fairs, and remember the pro tip to always check out the closet for those tucked away gems.

1. Walk up to the artwork on a booth that catches your eye

2. Spend time really looking at it and notice how it makes you feel

3. Take a photo of the artwork

4. Take a photo of the caption or the booth name. Please do not pull your phone out during art fair week and show me a painting with zero context and ask me if I know the artist. Actually please don’t do this to anyone. (This step is also great for tagging the artist AND gallery on socials).

5. Ask “Can you tell me more about this work?” or “Do you have any more examples by the artist?”

6. Inquire “Is it available?” and “What does it retail for?”

7. If the artworks are all sold or they say “the works have all been placed”, you can still ask “What was the price range?”

8. Leave your name and email if you want the gallery to follow up when the artist has new work available - or just text me. If you want help considering a work for your collection, ask the gallery to email you the details and forward them my way to discuss!

Reminder that I am moderating these four upcoming events if you want to ask collecting questions in person! Spring Place Panel on 5/5, Mystic Caviar x Anne Parke Art Salon on 5/6, ArtStack at People’s on 5/12, and NADA Collects at the fair on 5/16.

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Today’s newsletter is a little longer and a little different: I’ve included a detail shot of each work below. I LOVE zooming in on a PDF preview to see what I can find going on in each artwork. If you can’t stand in front of the artwork itself, I recommend poring over the jpeg to discover materiality, hidden figures, process. It’s like the adult version of the Graeme Base “The Eleventh Hour” book. I’ve also hyperlinked each artist’s Instagram, because clicking through their profile can be an accessible way to see more examples of their work.

Galleries share multiple images with me for each artwork, from different angles to scale shots, and there’s almost always a detail shot. My Substack platform limits me to share one image per artwork if I want to pack as many pieces into a weekly edition as I do. So today I’m giving you two: the work, and the detail you’d miss at first glance.

Take the Alexandria Tarver painting below. You probably can’t tell if you’re quickly scrolling through a pixelated feed, but she actually paints all the layers of color first, then paints the darker tones around to create the shapes. Those flower stems were never lines! They grew from the space around them! There’s an incredible, subtle electric glow to these paintings that a rage-click, scroll-by will just not reveal.

There’s a reason I select each artwork for the newsletters, so even if you’re wondering “why would she include that” or as my mom likes to say “that’s not for me”, you should ask me why. If something catches your eye, please always ask for more: more images, more context, more about the artist’s practice. I promise you there are lovely and friendly people in the art world who, like me, are bursting at the seams to share. Enjoy!

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Peter Brock

Anthropic (03), 2026

Oil on aqua resin on aluminum

28 x 36 inches

$7,000

Łukasz Stokłosa

Palazzo Reale di Napoli, 2024

Oil on canvas

31 ½ x 35 ⅜ inches

€9,500

Alexandria Tarver

nights, 99, outside S&T’s wedding, 2026

Oil on linen mounted on panel

19 x 25 inches

$9,000

John Hee Taek Chae

Death of the Buddha (Spring), 2025

Oil on muslin

52 x 42 inches

$9,000

Abigail Lucien

To Unravel A Wrought, 2026

Urethane and enamel on powder-coated steel

41 ½ x 34 ¼ x 16 inches

$16,000

Guillaume Dénervaud

DR-01 - CORE.ACT / LOAD, 2026

Ink on watercolor paper

29 1/4 x 21 inches (framed)

$10,000

If you enjoy weekly access to artist selections,
consider becoming a paid subscriber!
And if you know someone building a thoughtful collection,
feel free to forward this issue. 💚

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My dad’s writing is a welcome relief from inbox fatigue and AI slop. I love taking fifteen minutes to find out what happens next in each issue in the lives of four young adults navigating the start of the Civil War. It is like when TV shows came out once a week and you could not binge watch. My dad would say that having to wait for the next issue “builds character”. (And do not even try to impress him by mentioning that you are reading War and Peace unless you are reading it in the original Russian).

Looking at art is the other version of this for me: the same forced stillness, the same being present. Give art a little space for you to breathe and think about its meaning; live in the moments when you are not looking at a screen.

Being present is also one of the best parts of People’s and it’s why I love curating the art there. People are fully alive and engaged during the moments in those rooms. I love that there is art in every stolen glance and in each memory made there. I am so pleased to share the latest artworks from our spring exhibition at People’s!

I curate the artwork selection around figurative works that reflect the community, engagement, and sometimes voyeuristic views of the guests. One cheeky anecdote for this latest exhibition is that I included 13 works by Jonathan Wateridge to pay homage to the address, 113 West 13th Street, the same building where Edith Halpert launched her Downtown Gallery one hundred years ago. Paid subscribers will see details below for the ArtStack event at People’s next month.

Lastly, I am excited to share with you that I am moderating a panel this Friday evening in collaboration with Layer about the future of digital art. Please let me know if you are interested in attending and I will add your name to the guest list!

If you can’t make the panel on Friday, I hope to see you at the New York Academy of Art Tribeca Ball on Monday. Purchase Tickets Here. Enjoy!

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In the coming weeks, I am producing several exciting salons to see art in person and exclusively preview artworks ahead of the May fairs. If you are planning to be in New York for Frieze New York, NADA New York, The Independent, 1-54, or Future Fair, consider purchasing tickets to the following events:

• Mystic Caviar x AP Art Salon
  - An evening of tarot readers, caviar, wine, and gallerists sharing a first look of their fair booth presentations
  - Limited ticket availability! Purchase here

• NADA Collects Member Salon Preview
  - Three galleries presenting upcoming presentations: Deanna Evans Projects, Chozick Family Art Gallery, and JDJ
  - Monthly member event on April 28: join here for time and location

• People’s ArtStack Evening
  - Substack art writers share which artists, galleries and booths they are most excited to see at the fairs
  - Event details shared next week with paid subscribers

I know all you New Yorkers are excited for the May art fairs, but April is just as packed with global art fairs:

SP-Arte: April 8–12, São Paulo
EXPO Chicago: April 9–12, Chicago
Art Paris: April 9–12, Paris
Art Cologne Palma Mallorca: April 9–12, Palma, Mallorca
Plural: April 10–12, Montreal
Dallas Art Fair: April 16–19, Dallas (a favorite fair!)
miart: April 17–19, Milan
The Photography Show (AIPAD): April 22–26, New York
Art Brussels: April 23–26, Brussels

I hope you enjoy my selections below, which include a manuscript-themed artwork, an appropriated Andy Warhol painting (yes, even the bubble wrap is paint), a wall-dependent sculpture, and a couple of abstract pieces that if you squint hard enough, you’ll see the figures. Enjoy!

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Last summer I dedicated a full newsletter to one of the clearest examples of a strong visual language: Art for If You Actually Don’t Own an Emma Kohlmann Yet. Emma is the kind of artist where even a small work on paper is instantly, irrefutably hers. I take most of my Zoom calls in front of a large Emma Kohlmann work on paper in my collection, and it is hands down the most recognized and the most inquired about artwork during my calls.

This week’s edit is a study in exactly that quality: artists whose work stops you cold because there is simply nothing else like it! I hope you enjoy this week’s selections of artworks. Thanks to my impressive grasp of technology, I embedded a video and thus was able to fit FIFTEEN artworks below. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts.

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I didn’t buy it because someone told me the artist was important (I honestly didn’t know who the artist was at the time); I bought the photograph because I knew why I personally wanted it. That distinction would later become the foundation of how I teach people to collect. I decided to buy it with my babysitting money from the previous Saturday night. I couldn't afford much else at the time.

A man eating his noodles on a fire escape, looking down at 88 Bowery and Hester Street,
Chinatown, New York City in 1998. Photo by Chien-Chi Chang.

I had just taken a 70% pay cut from Blackstone to go work as an assistant at one of the best galleries in the world, David Zwirner. I justified the decision that I was investing in myself, betting on myself that if I got close enough to the best in the business I would learn something that I could eventually bring somewhere new. I wanted to contribute meaningfully to the cultural landscape that so far I was only a bystander in.

After several years working at Zwirner, I joined the sales team at Fergus McCaffrey. It was during my experience at these two Chelsea bluechip galleries that I started to understand what I actually wanted to do with everything I had learned.

I wanted to be in the room where decisions were made and to learn how a work of art gets valued, how it gets placed in a collection, and how the whole system actually operates. Then I wanted to take what I learned from that system and contribute to building the infrastructure where it did not yet exist.

There is an entire generation of collectors who are about to inherit the greatest wealth transfer in history, and I wanted to be their bridge to the world of art collecting. I could see the interest everywhere, and I could also see the Instagram accounts sharing their top ten art fair picks, the publications covering the market, the panels about collecting, but nobody was explaining why how to actually begin or why any of it mattered. I even sat on a panel once where someone in the audience asked, genuinely, ‘but where do I find an art advisor?’. I understood how the top of the market worked, and I wanted to translate that for a generation that was curious, capable, and ready. There was no clear framework for how a new collector begins, so I built one.

I began programming events while I was at Fergus McCaffrey in 2018 and 2019. I started hosting evenings for new and young collectors featuring the more accessible, entry-level price point of our artists’ inventory. Then in 2020 and 2021, I launched AP Art Salons, inviting people who had never bought art into the same room as gallerists, letting them hear directly how a gallery program gets built, why an artist gets chosen for that roster, and what makes something worth living with.

Nobody was buying at first but everybody was asking the same question. Where do I start? What should my first piece be? How do I know what I like? How do I know what’s good? I didn’t have a neat answer then but I had rooms full of people asking, so I kept showing up to meet them there. AP Art Salons evolved into Lower East Side gallery walks, then curating at People’s, then spearheading the New Art Dealers Alliance emerging collectors initiative, NADA Collects.

But before all of that, I still had a simple problem: too many people asking me for art recommendations of where to start, and too many individual emails with random art offers where I felt like I was just throwing spaghetti at a wall. That’s when my dear friend Megan O’Connor Elsayed told me I needed a Substack. I thought if I put my ten art picks from the week in one place, I could send every new client to that platform first. Tell me what resonates, I would say. Tell me if you’re drawn to the sculpture or the painting, the abstract or the figurative. We can start there.

What I didn’t expect was that the newsletter would become the answer to the question I had been hearing for years. Not just for my clients, but for anyone who had ever stood in front of a work of art and felt something they couldn’t name, and wanted to know what to do with that feeling.

Most people think learning to look at art means taking an art history class or following the right art-world insiders on Instagram or joining a museum patron group. But when I sit down with a new client, I don’t start there. I ask them what they like and why they like it; I want to know what they keep noticing or which images stand out and hold meaning. And almost everyone says the same thing: I don’t know why. There’s just something about it. That’s not a wrong answer and that’s exactly where we begin.

Looking at art starts with your own awareness, understanding what pulls you in, what stops you, and then finding the pattern of the things you keep returning to. The reasons are always going to be different for every person, because works hold different meanings to different people. But you still need to understand why you personally are drawn to something. You don't need an art history background to get there, you just need to understand why you personally want something.

This newsletter exists because of that question, and it is my attempt to answer it, one entry point at a time. Mine started with a photograph of a fire escape on the Bowery. Yours starts here.

• Introduction: on learning to look

• Start with Awareness: what do you keep noticing

• Start with Intention: what do you actually want from this

• Start with Looking: how to be in a room with art

• Start with One Work: when to know something is yours

• Start with Patronage: why supporting an artist’s practice matters

• Continue with Love: what it means to collect art for life

I hope you enjoy this week’s selections.

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Motohiro Takeda

Hanaikada (Flower Boat) #15 and Hanaikada (Flower Boat) #16, 2025

Concrete, cherry blossoms

14 x 11 x 1 inches

$3,200 each

Madelyn Kellum

Ella I Saw You, 2026

Oil on canvas

28 x 22 inches

$4,000

Ignacio Gatica

Sunset 07, 2025

Custom software, LED panels, single board computer, custom artist frame, power supply

15 x 9 7/8 x 2 3/8 inches

$10,000

Kevin Sabo

Untitled Martini I and Untitled Martini II, 2026

Acrylic and graphite on canvas

14 x 11 inches

£1,600 each

Lior Modan

The Bite, 2026

Velvet, foam, plastic, sand, epoxy putty in cast rubber frame

23 x 26 inches

$8,000

Marlon Kroll

Tabloid, 2026

Colored pencil on bed sheet over panel

30 x 40 inches

$9,500

Chris “Daze” Ellis

Innervisions, 2025

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 20 inches

$8,500

Joshua Aster

Petals and Gourds, 2026

Egg oil tempera on linen

17 x 16 inches

$3,000 each

Margaret Curtis

Moonshiner Dataminer, 2026

Oil and ash on Dibond panel

60 x 48 inches

$16,500

Alice Kettle

Catch, 2026

Various threads on printed linen mix

22 x 18 inches

£6,000

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One of the things I care most about in my work is making that feeling of discovery accessible, not just to people who already know the rooms, but to anyone curious enough to walk in. I think that curiosity is already forming into something larger: a visually fluent generation that wants to live intelligently with contemporary art, and I want to help shape how that instinct becomes discernment.

It’s why Casey Monda and I created Viewing Rooms (also on TikTok and YouTube), an educational video series designed to give people the language and confidence to engage with contemporary art: how to ask about pricing, how to talk about an artist’s practice, what actually happens in those installation conversations. And it’s why I film videos about the artists I curate at People’s: to lift the veil a little and to show the work being looked at and talked about in real time.

I’ll admit it openly that I have not heard of every artist (I mean has anyone??). But I am always curious to know more, and I think that curiosity is exactly the right approach to bring into any gallery or space for collecting art. My hope is that this newsletter functions as one of those rooms, welcoming, specific, and worth sticking around in. I highly recommend checking out two of the longest paintings I have ever included - one is 105 inches and one is over 171 inches! Don’t make me name names, I know those of you who need a piece above your couch.

As always, please reply with interest and questions (let’s dig into that Kirlian photograph!). Paid subscribers also have an invitation below to a jewelry showcase at People's, and next week will be this month’s free issue with all the images and pricing available. Consider becoming a subscriber to always access weekly featured artists and artworks.

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My favorite example is Elizabeth Jaeger. I first saw her work in NYC in 2019 at Jack Hanley. Five years later, I saw her exhibition at Capsule Shanghai: Venice when I was visiting the Biennale. Last year, I saw her in Marie Catalano’s exhibition upstate at Octagon House, and this year I have been placing her flower sculptures from her current exhibition at Silke Lindner with collectors who read this newsletter. (Honorable mention to Elizabeth’s incredible ice skating at my birthday party this weekend!)

Another example of these accumulated encounters comes from this newsletter itself. A subscriber replied to last week’s issue inquiring about the Michael Thompson piece. I had placed a Thompson work in her collection a few years ago and was thrilled to see her continued connection to his practice when I shared this note with her:

The source image is a photo of Diana Ross that he found on the reverse of a greatest hits album of hers. MT is particularly interested in the sequins and textiles from that period, so it feels nicely connected to the [artwork by Michael] that you have.

I love when a reader engages with this newsletter, and it is even more gratifying to watch a collector’s taste develop over time through the artists they first discover here! Over the years I have noticed that this kind of engagement accumulates into something larger than market awareness and becomes a form of cultural stewardship. Just wait till you see the newest Michael Thompson painting below, encapsulating a powerful moment of collision.

Collectors rarely decide they love an artist all at once, I see it occurring after repeated encounters. And occasionally those encounters become the reason you start pricing flights. For collectors who want to live intelligently with contemporary art, following that curiosity across cities can often be where the real stewardship begins.

For now before you book those flights, I hope you enjoy my selections below!

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I often include artists in my newsletter when I know they have an upcoming exhibition or museum show or art fair presentation. I love giving my readers an early chance to buy artworks before prices increase and before the artists are awarded prizes, press. I was so proud to see the Artsy report on sold out LA booths by artists I featured in this newsletter before the fair opened.

The silent partners of this newsletter are the gallerists I work with. They often provide me with hard-to-access, first-look inventory like the works featured below. Gallerists are the biggest advocates for their artists, investing colossal time, energy, and resources into shaping gallery programs and developing careers.

The gallerists have also trusted me: shown up to my salons, believed in my advisory, and allowed countless installment plans for me to build my collection. So thank you to my gallery heroines and heroes for your faith, your advocacy, and helping me find so much joy in collecting!

So this issue is both personal and a thank you to the galleries who make discovery possible; to the artists who allow us into their thinking; and to my subscribers, for reading this every week and building your own cultural fluency.

I hope you enjoy my selections below as much as I wish I could buy every single work. If you feel inclined to become a paid subscriber as a birthday gesture, I will happily accept 💚

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Julia represents the curiosity, stewardship, and passion that define this generation of art collectors. A marketing consultant working across beauty, wellness, and fashion, she brings a curated eye to everything she encounters (I highly recommend her Substack My Entire Personality - it is my go to for the best beauty and wellness recommendations). Before we began working together, Julia had already started acquiring work independently. Since then, her engagement with contemporary art has deepened in intentional and inspiring ways.

Julia acquired works from some of my favorite artists featured in past newsletters; she goes gallery hopping; pings me every time she visits a place in desperate need of art; reads all the articles I send her about artists; and she spends time with artists’ practices beyond the acquisition. Art collecting is a lifelong relationship, and I find that level of commitment to be rare and meaningful.

Another salient aspect of collecting is participating in the broader cultural ecosystem. Julia now advises companies in the art world on marketing strategy through her firm, Casella Consulting, such as the Bronx Museum and other galleries. Her client roster includes Uniqlo, Saie, Living Proof, and Hourglass. I love seeing how her professional life and collecting life are in conversation with each other.

The paramount part of Julia’s feature in today’s newsletter is her discernment. I sent her my selection of 16 artworks that I am excited to explore at the LA art fairs this week: Julia picked four pieces.

During an art fair week defined by volume and velocity, that kind of editing is imperative. It’s demonstrative of how your art collection is a reflection of personal taste and sensibility, not speculation.

I have included a few additional works in this month’s free issue as well, but today is centered on Julia’s eye. I hope her curated approach encourages you to consider your own. Enjoy our selections below!

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Julia’s Highlights:

Erin Wright

Untitled, 2025

Acrylic on canvas

34 x 27 inches

$13,200

Kemar Wynter

Shepherd’s Call (Steamed Bean Curds Rolls), 2025

Acrylic on Evolon

28 x 40 inches

$8,000

iris yirei hu

Heart Portal, 2026

Ink, acrylic, gouache, watercolor and pastel on linen

16 x 22 inches

$6,500

Danielle Kosann

The Ecstasy of Life, 2026

Oil and ink on canvas

48 x 48 inches

$10,000

My Highlights:

Zenobia Lee

Red Earth, 2026

Cast aluminum

42 x 31 x 19 1/2 inches

$7,000

Africanus Okokon

Banquet, 2024

Oil, silkscreen ink, Maillard-reacted coconut milk on canvas on panel

40 x 30 inches

$10,000

Ren Light Pan

Christie’s Lot 626 (both sides): Collection Yves Saint Laurent et Pierre Bergé, 2009. Small bronze by Giovanni Francesco Susini, 17th century, 2026

Ink, water, infrared light and muslin

24 x 16 inches

$5,000

Margaux Ogden

Bathers (Quinacridone Magenta, Phthalo Turquoise, Primary Magenta, Cyan Blue), 2025

Acrylic on canvas

64 x 48 inches

$16,000

Naresh Kumar

Mother Tongue I, 2025-26

Indigo powder, marble dust, copper dust, water, Korean stickers, colour pencil on yellow page magazine in artist’s frame

22 3/4 x 17 1/4 inches

$5,500

Ken Gonzales-Day

Reflection (Digital Composition with Plaster Copy of Roman Copy, Dying Gaul, Royal Cast Collection, Copenhagen; Mesoamerican, Chac Mool, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City; Monet’s House and Garden, Giverny), 2025

Edition 2 of 5 + 2 AP

Archival ink on rag paper

55 x 40 inches

$12,500

Aryo Toh Djojo

Final Touches, 2026

Acrylic on canvas

14 x 18 inches

$7,000

Nizhonniya Austin

A Love That Stars Revolutions, 2025

Acrylic, oil stick, and wax pencil on canvas

47 x 47 inches

$15,500

If you enjoy this newsletter and want weekly access to artist selections, consider becoming a paid subscriber! And if you know someone building a thoughtful collection, feel free to forward this issue. 💚

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I know everyone complains about sitting in LA traffic, but the truth is when you see that much art in such a compacted amount of time, sitting in traffic actually allows the time to contemplate and digest everything you’ve just seen. I look forward to hearing your feedback on today’s selections - please let me know if there are artists you’re looking forward to seeing at the fairs as well.

A gentle reminder that with any art fair previews, works sell at an expedited pace than those in an exhibition. I use this newsletter as a platform for education and discovery, so that you can learn about an artist ahead of an art fair in case you need to make a decision quickly.

Today’s newsletter also includes a bonus work below before the paywall, because Fin Simonetti is one of my favorite sculptors. Fin has an exhibition opening in Toronto, and I just couldn’t wait to share these incredible stone works with you.

As always, all of the below artists have several works available, and it always helps to see an artist’s practice holistically. I look forward to hearing your interests and inquiries! Enjoy!

Fin Simonetti

Untitled (twisting black flame), 2026

Emerald onyx, breccia stazzema marble

30.5 x 8.75 x 3 inches

$12,000

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In honor of my upcoming travels, today’s newsletter features mostly artworks in crisp palettes, glacial tones, and quiet energy. As much as I love spending time inside art galleries, I equally enjoy the fresh air and breathtaking vistas that come with outdoor activities. I find both experiences can offer moments of peace and perspective, not to mention lower cortisol levels.

I know not everyone is a sculpture addict like I am, but I’m including two floral works at the beginning and end of this newsletter with two intentions:

(1) to help strengthen your resolve against winter adversities and

(2) to remind everyone that Anne Parke Birthday Week inception begins now

The APBDW™️ (first week of March) newsletter: birthday edition will feature works exclusively by artists in my personal collection. I promise it won’t be all sculptures.

As always, please reply with any interest on acquiring specific artworks and if you would like to see more examples by the artist. Enjoy this week’s selections and stay warm, healthy, and safe out there!

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• Today at 2:00pm ET, I am moderating a panel for NADA Collects! You can sign up to join here and listen to me ask questions about art collecting fundamentals to our esteemed gallery panelists: Nicelle Beauchene, Megan Bradley, and Alex Nazari

• Also today at 1:00pm ET, there is a Brooklyn Rail Zoom conversation between artist Alex Kwartler (featured in today’s newsletter) and Rail contributor Will Heinrich

• Tomorrow morning, the third episode of Viewing Rooms drops with a guest appearance by the artist Ang Ziqi Zhang (featured in today’s newsletter)

• Everyone in Mexico City, please go to Feria Material and stop by Situations gallery booth to see the Heather Benjamin works (also featured in today’s newsletter) and tell me all about them (ask for Jackie!)

• Please also stop by murmurs gallery’s booth at in the curated Ejes section at Zona Maco and talk about my obsession with Y. Malik Jalal who will have a solo booth with them at Frieze LA later this month (ask for Morgan!)

In full transparency, I write these newsletters on weekends with coffee (or a Negroni, if it’s Negroni O’Clock), combing through an inbox of gallery previews to find compelling and interesting artwork around the 10,000-dollar price point. Once I make my selections, I confirm the artworks’ availability on Tuesday, and sometimes the works still sell faster than a hockey puck hits the net (sadly, not looking at you, New York Rangers).

It’s clear that contemporary art no longer arrives in one neat place; it comes in fragments: exhibitions, feeds, books, conversations, dinners, screens, often out of sequence and rarely with much guidance on how it all fits together.

One of my first obsessions in college was Andy Warhol and his question of what happens to the meaning and value of an image when it’s repeated over and over. The projects I work on, whether at luxury hospitality spaces, through this newsletter, or in advisory contexts, are all shaped by that question:

How do we create conditions for discernment instead of just churning out top 10 lists? I want spaces to talk about relevance that lasts and why, and I think this is where discernment starts to matter more than access.

I hope you enjoy today’s discerned selections and reply with lots of “why?” questions!

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I started this newsletter in 2022 to cut through the saturation of previews, feeds, and my never ending inbox. There are endless platforms for contemporary art discovery, but far fewer spaces for discernment and judgment on how to collect it and where to start. I hear a lot of calls for more collectors to join and support the art market ecosystem, but I wasn’t seeing many solutions how to encourage and guide new clients into the fold.

I’m less interested in commentary than in building structures that people actually return to for discovering and buying contemporary art.

Much of what I have been building has come from listening to how people actually want to live with and collect art now. The problem isn’t access to contemporary art - there’s too much available so the strategies of Duveen, Castelli, even Gagosian hold up less - but the absence of a middle structure. Institutions move too slowly to establish taste and viral social media moments move too quickly to sustain authority, so I wanted a space for art in between that feels both aspirational and possible.

Through this newsletter, Viewing Rooms, curated exhibitions at People’s, and the salons and gallery walks I host, I’ve been focused on creating spaces where contemporary art can be encountered with transparency rather than opacity, and with guidance rather than intimidation. It’s been especially gratifying to see other women doing this work in parallel:

• Kate Lee is one of the youngest collectors I know to start her own nonprofit, 603 Arts Foundation for “the acquisition, preservation, and promotion of art with roots in Asia, the Asia Pacific, and Latin America, while fostering opportunities for emerging artists worldwide.” Her enriching deep dives into artists are the art history courses I’ve been sorely missing.

• Alex Bass at Salon 21 is launching a panel series highlighting seasoned and emerging art collectors: you can attend the inaugural panel tonight and hear from Amitha Raman! Tickets available here.

• Tze Chun founded Uprise Art which is an incredible resource for discovering artists and original works of art

I hope you enjoy this month’s free newsletter of my selections below and that my work has helped you engage with contemporary art at a deeper level. As always, I look forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts, interests, and ideas!

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Sam Lipp

Vagabond, 2025

Oil and enamel on steel, frottage, screws

23 x 29 inches

$12,000

Vijay Masharani

Window composition, 2026

Single channel video, runtime 0:41

Ed.of 3 + 2AP

Watch HERE

€3,000

Maison Olivier

PEOPLE’S, 2026

Liquitex on linen

8 x 10 inches

Limited signed edition

$1,250

Paul Anthony Smith

Untitled, 2025

Paper pulp pigment

40 x 30 inches

$15,500

Henni Alftan

M, 2025

Colored pencil on paper

9⅞ x 7⅞ inches (18 x 16 inches framed)

$10,000

Eve Fowler

Roll back your eyes, a pool (green), 2025

Flashe and acrylic ink on canvas

18 x 18 x 1 1/2 inches

$7,000

Brit Krohmer

DEAD CHANNEL, 2026

Chemically chromed ceramic

22 x 14 x 4.5 inches

$1,200

Brit Krohmer

ILLUSION OF SAFETY, 2026

Chemically chromed ceramic

17 x 6.25 x 6.25 inches

$1,000

Yi Liu

The Hunt, 2025

Oil and acrylic on canvas

45.28 x 66.93 inches

$9,750

Kathryn Lynch

Navy Beach (moon sun), 2025

Oil on canvas

30 x 36 inches

$12,000

Melody Tuttle

Arrangement for a Missing Body, 2025

Oil on canvas

48 x 36 inches

$16,000

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When I make selections for this newsletter, I think about artworks that serve as a catalyst for curiosity. Art is a conversation starter, served piping hot on a silver platter. This isn’t an art book, but one of my favorite reads from the past couple of years was Talking At Night by Claire Daverly. Books like this, and artworks like the ones below, can start conversations and keep them going well into the night. All you have to do is ask!

Last night, I moderated a panel that asked about the evolving landscape of contemporary art collecting and the renewed role of salons and social gatherings in shaping how art is discovered today. At a time when images circulate faster online than comprehension, I find the role of discernment to matter more than ever and I want to understand which platforms and voices are deciding our contemporary cultural lexicon.

Enjoy today’s selections, and thank you to all of my subscribers for following along. I can’t wait to continue these conversations in future newsletters.

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On the other hand, discernment and judgment are crucial to art collecting, and this newsletter reflects my curated selections that I discover at contemporary art galleries.

As I enter my fifth year writing this newsletter, I’m expanding into digital media so I can share more artworks. Alongside my exhibition videos for People’s, I’m developing an educational series to share exactly what I look for as an advisor when evaluating exhibitions, art fair booths, and artist studios. Art is inseparable from the stories that shape the artist’s practice, and platforms like YouTube and TikTok are integral to sharing these discernments and discoveries in the visual arts.

That commitment to storytelling is also clear at People’s from my first conversation with its owners. They conceived the space as a platform where guests create and share stories while engaging with contemporary art outside the white-box gallery model. I am writing this newsletter ahead of a press-only panel I’m moderating at People’s next week, bringing together the editor-in-chief of Cultured, exhibiting artist Aglaé Bassens, and several leaders working across the art world.

Thank you to all my subscribers and please continue to follow along for contemporary art updates! I publish one free issue each month, with the rest reserved for paid subscribers who support this work. Some of the works in today’s newsletter will be featured in my upcoming video series!

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