My time at NYC Art Fair Week

I went to my first NYC Art Fair this weekend. If you aren’t familiar, it was new to me too. Once a year in May, for a week, major art fairs descend on NYC with galleries from all over the world showing their artists across the city. All of the galleries in NYC open their doors that week as well.

There is so much to see that you have to be intentional with your time. I chose to attend two fairs: one considered smaller, focused on emerging artists — the i54 African Artist Fair — and one large fair showcasing artists at the top of their craft, as lauded by the king and queen makers: Frieze.

This helped me accomplish my goal of seeing what emerging artists are thinking about, and seeing what is considered excellent at the top of the art game.

I wrote down every artist I specifically wanted to see at both fairs, because I’ve got it in my mind to stand in front of works by artists who intrigue me rather than being satisfied seeing them online. You know how people collect stamps or rare coins? I see this the same way, collecting real life memories of works. That’s also why I have a guiding principle for myself: I don’t share an artist’s work online or write about them unless I’ve seen their works in real life.

So what did I stand in front of and now have a three-dimensional opinion on?

Danielle McKinney (b. 1981) at Marianne Boesky Gallery in Chelsea. The gallery prepared dark, moody green walls to complement McKinney’s work. While her paintings feel exactly like you’d imagine in person, brooding, intimate, subjects at ease with solitude, there’s a sense that she’s growing in her technical skills, and I appreciated seeing that.

I asked the gallerist if any paintings were available and was told everything was sold out, at prices ranging from $90K to $200K. McKinney’s work isn’t large at all, so this is significant. There’s an overwhelming interest in what she makes, and I think people are immediately drawn to it because it makes you feel something. You get decide what that is, but you feel something.

What came up for me looking at her work: as an artist, you have to follow your personal vision, even when you don’t feel fully skilled enough to execute it. I’ve listened to McKinney on several podcasts and interviews. She talks about being a late entrant to painting (she started in 2020) and about her constant learning, her hiccups, her catching up with the craft. She didn’t get caught up in being perfect.

She had a vision for these moody women in solitude and she executed it. Six years later, she’s the toast of the town. I don’t think the gatekeepers will let us all in, but I feel deeply now that sticking to your vision no matter what is more important than the entrance ticket. .

Madjeen Isaac (b 1996) I discovered her work on Instagram, drawn to her scenes with banana leaves, chickens, abandoned tires, people going to and fro. It reminded me of Ghana’s landscape, but Madjeen is actually painting from a first generation Haitian-American perspective and grew up in Brooklyn, NYC. She was at the i54 fair greeting people, so we had a chance to chat. She is warm and a present conversationalist.

We talked about her underpainting choices, she loves the glow that Alizarin Crimson gives her work. As she said it, we both looked at her painting searching for the glow. It was there.

Tuere Nicole’s work was next to Isaac’s. She was also on my list. She’s still an art student at Yale’s legendary MFA program, which has graduated many notable artists of our time, and she’s already receiving serious attention for her light-hearted portrayals of girlhood. Most of her work was sold out. There’s a playfulness and freshness to it that I really liked. Where McKinney is moody and brooding, Nicole feels like opening a window and letting some air in.

At Frieze, I made a beeline for four artists.

Khalif Tahir Thompson — there was only one piece of their work there, I wanted to see more of their work. Frieze, by the way, is for high-end collectors. Art advisors walk the floor calling their clients, making decisions about pieces in real time, alongside others who seem to buy art out of both love and financial investment.

I really liked the simple lines of France-Lise McGurn’s (b. 1983) work after seeing an artist interview on YouTube. There’s restraint and translucent approach to her work. Not a lot of paint, more like sketches but they feel like a completely finished painting. I also like the way she conveys form with just enough lines to tell you this is a shoulder, a smirk, an eye and gets on with it.

Tschabalala Self (b. 1990) printmaking, textile-based figurative work has been on my feed for years and I finally saw a piece in person.

I’ve seen Chantal Joffe’s (b.1969) work before in London, but I always stop for her work. She’s one of my favorite artists for her willingness to make her subjects a little ugly, distorted, in the tradition of artist Alice Neel. If you watch her interviews, it tracks with her personality. She comes across as unpretentious, going about her paintings like someone who has seen enough of life and isn’t compelled to gus it up.

I noticed a candy apple green underpainting seeping through her work, so I asked the gallerist about it. She told me Joffe uses it because it’s supposedly good for flesh tones. So Madjeen Isaac uses Alizarin Crimson and Joffe uses candy apple green. I might experiment with both.

Then there was the art I had no idea existed until I strolled aimlessly through.

Rafa Silvares (b. 1984) a Brazilian painter based in Berlin at Frieze — who knew toothpaste could draw me in. I learned that he takes ordinary things and paints them on large canvases in bright, saturated colors. It has a bit of a pop art feel that I’m not really a fan of but I really liked it in person whereas I would’ve skipped it if I only saw it online. This painting also made me realize the upside of wandering in an art fair, you meet an entirely new taste bud.

Emma Webster’s (b. 1989) work at Preztel Gallery in Chelsea — I literally sat in front of it for a minute. Somehow she made you feel like you were walking into the woods toward a bright source of light glowing in an intimate corner, with just you and some deer. Not my usual sensibility at all, but it made you want to step inside the painting. The animals aren’t rendered true to form, they feel like creatures from another world, plants and all. Her work is definitely something that must be seen in person, they don’t fair well with a camera.

These are just the works I wanted to write about (while on this train ride from NYC to DC). However, I saw a lot of art in the span of a weekend. I must have walked through 20 galleries and saw at least 70 individual booths inside the fairs. It was good to see how other artists were working through their ideas and to see what was being given gold and silver medals in the art world.

But I left not really inspired. I thought I’d feel more after seeing the so-called greats.

What the time there did affirm, though, is that art is so subjective and that this road as an artist should ONLY be guided by your own personal vision, your own interests, and whatever you want to bring into reality. Your work will land, or it might not. But you won’t know until you just make it.