When Art Becomes a Means of Movement
Casey Monda
Contemporary painters to know and live with
The artists in Art Drop #11 come from all over the globe and look about as different as three artists can; but what connects them is a shared sense of movement, and their ability to propel a viewer from one place to another simply by existing in a space.
Each week, I publish an Art Drop when new works are added to The Collection. This post offers the editorial context behind that update—how I’m thinking about the artists, and how their work shows up in a lived space.
This week, I’m leaving the images to The Collection—and focusing here on how the work feels, rather than how it looks.
First up is William Schaeuble, an Iowa- and Illinois-based painter whose work initially reads as familiar, even childlike: quiet scenes, Midwestern settings, images that feel almost disarmingly naïve. Spend more time with William Schaeuble’s paintings, though, and that surface simplicity begins to give way. His paintings hold a tension between what looks ordinary and what feels unresolved, inviting you to return to them again and again.
Even though the American experience sits at the core of Schaeuble’s practice, he invites viewers from anywhere to examine their own cultural experiences—and to question what they assume to be universal.
You may not be longing to be transported to farmland or cornfields, but there’s something grounding about work that reflects shared cultural memory—images that feel known, even if you can’t quite articulate why. In moments when everything feels noisy and accelerated, that kind of visual steadiness can be surprisingly restorative.
Next is Yi Liu, whose paintings move in the opposite direction—quickly, densely, and with a constant sense of motion. Yi Liu’s paintings are filled with imagery that pulls from both Eastern and Western visual traditions, creating compositions that feel alive with tension and momentum. Bulls chase butterflies. Cranes move beneath willow trees. Your eye never quite settles in one place.
Living between cultures—born in China and now based in London—Yi deploys an East-meets-West iconographic collision that mirrors her lived experience. These are paintings that reward attention and curiosity, revealing new details the longer you sit with them. (For more on this, you might watch this episode of Viewing Rooms where Anne Parke and I discuss this in depth.)
Finally, I want to turn to Kristen Giorgi, an artist I should have include in last week’s post about artists who I have been following for a while and are having a moment. Kristen Giorgi’s paintings employ color and shape in a way that feels immersive rather than descriptive. I often think of them as portals—not to a specific place, but to a state of mind.
There’s a soft yet deliberate magnetism to her work. A sense of warmth, light, and calm draws you in slowly, almost without your even realizing it. These are paintings that don’t demand your attention—but earn it, over time. Once you’ve found your way in, you want to return again and again.
This week, I added new works by each of these artists to The Collection, where I thoughtfully track the artists and specific pieces that stand out to me through my work as an advisor.
If you’re curious to see how these artists translate from idea to object—and how they might live on your walls—you can explore more there.
The First Episode of Viewing Rooms + 5 Artists Who Are Going To Have a Big Year
Casey Monda2026 is going to be big for so many reasons! January 24, 2026In Members OnlyBy Casey Monda7 Minutes I [...]
Second Miami Art Week Recap + Gifting Resources
Casey Monda
Art Drop #08
Are we a little Miami-ed out? Honestly, I’m not trying to cop out of doing a recap of Untitled and ABMB, which were stellar this year, but, full disclosure, I really want you to read my newsletter and I doubt anyone wants to read more about Miami. If you want to hear more about Miami, let’s have coffee or a Zoom to catch up. However, I imagine if you are reading this newsletter, you also follow a myriad other art news sources and have probably heard and seen all you care to about either of these fairs. Of course, I will drop my faves into The Collection for posterity and for you to peruse at your leisure, and I have to say I am particularly enthused about the 10 works I rounded up for today’s drop. The geographical breadth, the age range, the diversity of media–it is a dynamic bunch and I hope you will spend some time getting to know the artists that resonate with you.
But today I’d like to address a far more urgent topic. And that topic is what you are giving everybody on your gift list. We are mere days away from needing to wrap it up, folks, literally and figuratively. Let me give your gift-giving juices a boost with an aggregated list of art-related gift guides and online shops where you can find gift-worthy pieces of art and art objects at gift-giving pricepoints.
I will make the one caveat here: a dear client reached out to me before Miami and said he wants to buy his wife a piece of art for Christmas. I was on the hunt especially for her in Miami and just finished putting together a pretty little dossier for him to present to her on Christmas morning. They’ll pow wow and we will convene after the New Year to discuss which artists most resonate. Then we’ll move forward with discovering what is available and what is coming down the pipeline with exhibitions and putting together the strategy for acquisition. With some notice, this is a service I love to provide. Buying art for an SO is a great way to show them how well you know them and how much you’d like to get to know them more deeply.
Obviously, a subscription to Art I Saw & Liked makes the perfect gift for the art lover, the art curious, the artist, the traveller, the culture-lover, the person who has it all, the person who wants to spend less time on social media and more time learning, or even the person who has absolutely no idea that they love and need art. I was chatting with a lawyer a few days ago and telling her about Art I Saw & Liked. She said, “That is so cool. I have absolutely no idea what I like but I would love to see different stuff and be able to save it and watch how my taste changes over time!” AMEN SISTER!!!!!!!
Use code AISAL50 for the perfect gift under $50 and you don’t even have to leave your house! If you less into experiences and more into actual things, here are some great gifty, arty resources for you:
Massey Klein’s Give The Gift of Art Shop
JDJ’s Group Shop to Benefit Artists & Mothers and City Harvest
Chozick Family Art Gallery also benefiting Artists & Mothers and City Harvest
Deanna Evans Projects also benefiting Artists & Mothers and City Harvest
Romer Young’s Holiday Art Gallery
Katy Hessel’s Reading List: It would be fun to put together a book of the month club for the reader and art lover in your life.
More art objects but there is always something fun and funky at the MoMA Design Store
Andrea Myers, a Columbus-based artist I love, designed this beautiful postcard set inspired by the Japanese concept of micro seasons.
A Golsa Golchini print (less expensive) or original (more expensive). I find her work to be cheeky and fun and whimsical.
Hopefully this round up sparks an idea for the perfect gift for all the loved ones on your list! Now get to it! Clock’s a tickin’!
Much love and holiday cheer,
C
Recently Added toThe Collection
Na Kim at Nicola Vassell Gallery (ABMB)
Sergio Sister at Nara Roesler (ABMB)
Stephanie Comilang at Daniel Faria Gallery (ABMB)
Sofia Bjurström at Richard Heller Gallery (Untitled)
Jordan Sears at IRL Gallery (Untitled)
Until Next Week–
Casey Monda | CEO & Art Advisor
First of Several Miami Art Week Recaps: NADA Edition
Casey Monda
Art Drop #07
In case you have been living under a rock or hate culture, Miami Art Week happened this week and I went. Of all the fairs and art weeks I go to throughout the year, this one is the biggest. Art Basel Miami Beach, also known as “the big fair” or ABMB, had close to 300 galleries from around the world touting their wares at the Miami Beach Convention Center. With Untitled and NADA as the two main secondary fairs, there were easily over 500 galleries exhibiting the best contemporary art on offer today.
While I approached the week with cautious optimism, I honestly was not sure what to expect this year. In fact, I almost decided not to go and that was the tune so many fellow advisors sang this week. But it ended up being a fantastic slate of fairs! The material felt fresh (to borrow a phrase from a brilliant colleague). It was just risky enough to be interesting but not so risky that everyone wondered what they were going to do with it. I feel like I saw a lot of artists I’ve been following pushing the boundaries of their practices to new limits and it worked. For me, one of the three fairs is usually a standout, but this year I left all three (plus Design Miami) feeling inspired. Which means…it may take me a couple of weeks to roll out all of my favorites onto the site. So be patient and stay in touch with The Collection over the next couple of weeks. Here is everything I added this week. (Hint: it is not all specifically featured in this article.)
Since all three fairs were a standout, I decided to start my series of recaps with the first fair I attended, NADA, which stands for New Art Dealers Alliance. NADA has a reputation for being a little edgy, a little weird, but generally high quality emerging work. This year was no exception. I saw so much I liked, but keep in mind I am only including work under $15,000 in this recap and in The Collection. There was work that really resonated with me above that pricepoint. If your budget allows and you’re interested, feel free to reach out to me directly for more information. Here are a few key takeaways:
First, as an advisor based in Cleveland, it is really important for me to attend these fairs because it keeps me in sync with what is happening on the global art stage. I’m not talking about the world of auction records and blue chip galleries. I’m talking about artists from around the world at all different price points. I want to know, across the board, what artists are thinking about, what they’re making, and what stories they’re telling. This helps me understand the major arcs of relevancy and keep a pulse on what the legacy of our time might be.
On this front, a key takeaway from the week is that artists feel the universal need we all have to know who we are as individuals and how we fit into the world and connect with others. I had a lot of conversations about how artists are translating the personal, specific, and unique aspects of their own life into a more universal visual vocabulary that might help viewers feel more connected to each other. The work I spent time with felt authentic, honest, vulnerable, and relatable. One of my favorite artists in this vein was new-to-me Mayra vom Brocke at Linse Galeria out of Buenos Aires.
Something else to know about these fairs is that they are a petrie dish for relationship and professional development. 99.9% of the people I work with are outside of Cleveland. The lion’s share of those people are in New York so going to New York several times each year is imperative. But the fairs are the places I get to connect with the galleries I love in Toronto, Montreal, LA, London, Seoul, Argentina, Mexico, etc…in a very efficient way. Not only do I put faces and email addresses together IRL (looking at you Emma Fernberger), but I also get to reinforce existing relationships with some fantastic gallerists. I see new work from artists I already love and discover new-to-me artists to add to my tracker. Case in point: Moskowitz Bayse showing Ryan Flores and Alexa Guariglia. Sage Malecki, the gallerist I spoke with in the booth, even followed up our conversation with a few suggestions for a particularly challenging space that has stumped me for a while. I am so glad to be in touch with them now!
Moreover, Gallery Affinity out of Lagos, Nigeria, another new-to-me gallery, showed two artists I fell in love with as well. The work stopped me in my tracks but Olu’s enthusiasm for his artists kept me hooked. Samuel Nnorom makes these wonderful wall-dependent sculptures out of African wax print fabric. His mother is a fashion designer, which explains the choice of medium, but the sculptures themselves speak to the basic essence of humanity that binds us all together and allows us to live in harmony despite our differences. Lulama Wolf makes abstract paintings of women at rest or at leisure. Bucking the trend to always show African women at work, at the market, raising children, at the hearth, etc…Wolf shows the other side of femininity. She mixes her pigment with sand so the surface texture of these is gritty and rough, in contrast to her supple, sensual shapes.
And finally, the third reason I prioritize fairs in my annual travel schedule is to hone my eye and my taste. Like I said, I encountered over 500 galleries in 2.5 days. To digest that much material, you have to be able to quickly weed out what is not going to be interesting to you. You have to know what you like while remaining open to new discovery. And on that note, I work alone so getting to walk the fairs with other advisors opens up my world a little bit. We stop at booths that might not have caught my attention otherwise. We discuss the work we are seeing and I learn so much from these conversations. It is truly a delight to get out of my little silo and be with art world people who fill my culture cup! A discovery made possible by the knowing eye of Holly Hawkes was Anne Wehrley Björk at Fernberger. (Disclaimer: Anne’s work slightly overreaches our typical $15,000 cap but it is too good not to share.)
Mayra vom Brocke at Linse Galeria
Gorgeous, delicate paintings of butterflies and moths and the shadows they cast. These paintings speak to individuality, unexpected strength, hidden potential, and subtle beauty.
Ryan Flores at Moskowitz Bayse
A ceramicist who makes stunning floral works where painting, glazing, and sculpting are held in equally high esteem in the finished composition
Anne Wehrley Björk at Fernberger
Björk’s current body of work is an investigation into this landscape of her youth in New Mexico, as well as its very particular light quality.
For the sake of your sanity and the capacity of your brain to absorb more material, I leave it here for today. Tune in next week for another installment of art Casey saw and liked in Miami!
Until Next Week–
Casey Monda | CEO & Art Advisor
The Art World Necessity We All Love To Hate
Casey Monda
Art Drop #06
Now that we are on the other side of the big gobble gobble, I can shift my focus to Miami Art Week! Mid-November through the end of the year is really a marathon and a sprint. I love Miami in December but prepping for the biggest week of the year the week after Thanksgiving is a tall order. To come out successfully with your sanity in tact, you have to go in with a game plan and then you have to stick to the plan. (Stick to the plan!…Leroy Jenkins, anyone?) Forming a game plan for an art advisor means combing through the hundreds (yes, literally hundreds) of email previews I am receiving from all of the exhibitors, identifying what I want to make sure I see and mapping out my strategy. Yes, that literally means taking a fair map and highlighting the booths I want to make sure I hit while also leaving time and space to discover something new. I am also juggling meeting up with friends and colleagues, balancing the party/event invites I want to accept, giving tours on behalf of NADA Collects, and wheeling and dealing acquisitions for clients. What? Like it’s hard?
Since many of you reading this here missive are new to art collecting, I had planned to put together a glossary of sorts that would help you speak the art fair lingo, but as I started brainstorming, I realized that the main thing you need to learn is what a preview is, how to get it, and how to use it. So allow me to drop some knowledge on the art industry’s most infamous blessing and curse, the necessary evil we all love to hate–the humble preview <<in an Oprah voice for effect>>!
Sidebar:
If you are already familiar with the ins and outs of previews jump over to The Collection to see what goodies I have added this week. If swaying palm trees and the gentle sea breeze is calling your name but you can’t sneak away, grab an hour or two on my fair schedule for a FaceTime video call so I can show you around the fair of your choice.
Now, The Preview.
What is a preview?
The Preview is generally a dossier about an exhibition that typically includes an essay about an artist or exhibition, the artist’s CV/resume, and the list of available works in that exhibition.
Who sends a preview?
Broadly speaking, the gallery sends a preview of an upcoming exhibition. If you work with a specific person at a gallery, you will usually receive the preview personally from that person. If you are just on the general mailing list, then you will receive it in their general email marketing, anywhere from a day to a week after the personal emails go out.
When do previews go out?
Some galleries send previews of previews well in advance of an exhibition to start giving folks a taste of what is coming. Typically, a preview will come anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of days before an exhibition. Timing can depend on a lot of factors, such as:
- How V your I is in VIP
- If the work has been professionally photographed or when that is happening
- If the gallery likes to include installation shots in their previews
A gallerist will usually send their best clients the preview first and then send out a second wave of emails before it goes out to the general public. Also, you usually will not find this information on a gallery’s website. You have to ask or be in their orbit to receive it. That said, you should never be bashful about asking. If you come across a gallery that is interesting to you, ask to get on their preview list. Eventually you’ll work your way onto the A-list if you develop the relationship.
If not on the website, where do previews live?
A Preview is either a PDF document or a live link. If it is a live link, galleries will usually keep availability up to date so you can see if something has been sold or not. If it is a PDF, all of the work in the preview may not be available by the time you see it. If you find a work in a PDF preview that you like, you should prepare yourself for potential disappointment as it may already be sold.
Why are previews a necessary evil?
Previews are the expected way that clients and advisors receive information about exhibitions. However, when you are on hundreds of preview lists, they all come around the same time and it is overwhelming. We need them but they can be a slog to get through. Compound the frustration when a gallery insists on withholding pricing information unless you ask for it, and it can be a real pain in the you-know-what. The more progressive galleries who get it will include prices but usually you have to ask for them. If you are requesting a preview, ask for prices. If you are on a gallery’s email list, they will send you a preview and it probably will not include prices. You are allowed to ask for pricing information as a follow up to receiving the preview.
How to put a preview to its highest and best use?
First of all, you should know that the art in the preview is available to buy. You don’t have to wait until the exhibition opens to inquire about or reserve a work. Secondly, use the preview as a way to engage in a dialogue with a gallery that interests you. Demonstrating interest in their program will help bump you up the food chain. If you are still working on developing your taste, use the preview as an opportunity for education and discovery. Even if you think you don’t like the look of an artist, flip through the preview to get to know more about the work. You may surprise yourself but you will also start to discern perhaps what it is about that work that turns you off. Save them in a file on your computer to reference later. As you start collecting, you will probably want to refer back to an artist’s earlier exhibitions or pricing history.
Here’s another word of wisdom: sifting through previews is a full time job, my full-time job to be precise. If you have ever wondered how a collector can see something and make a snap decision, it is because they have invested their time and treasure into their collection. They have either hired an advisor who they trust to know the market and guide them to the right work or devoted their own time to knowing the market so that when that perfect work comes along, they are ready to pounce. In either instance, they have spent time homing their eye and their taste usually by looking at previews!
If you’re curious about where to start, I would recommend upgrading your subscription to a paid subscription so you can access The Collection and my Galleries & Museums map. These tools are the perfect place to begin discovering new galleries and artists that you would like to follow. Just remember, it is a journey. Where you start is not where you are going to finish. If you are open to surprise and discovery, the journey will be one of the most fulfilling of your life!
I hope everyone had a joy and gratitude-filled Thanksgiving and looking forward to the festive season ahead!
Can't Wait To See in Miami:
Sashi Moskowitz with Anna Erickson Presents
Mason Saltarelli at Timothy Hawkinson Gallery
Halsey Hathaway at SOCO Gallery
Alex Hutton at Shrine
Katie Butler at Hesse Flatow
Until Next Week–
Casey Monda | CEO & Art Advisor
Grateful For Growth
Casey Monda
Art Drop #05
Top of the morning to you! It’s Thanksgiving week and I have a lot to be grateful for. This year, I have spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to be grateful in a season of growth rather than a season of abundance–when you are working toward the harvest. To frame it in another way, how does one handle it when life pushes you so far in one direction that you have no choice but to lean in and roll with whatever that entails? In the last 5 years, this has happened to me. Now, I find myself in a season of growth that I truly wanted but with a set of challenges I did not anticipate. I am grateful to be in this place of growth and change, and for the work I was able to do to get me here. It is never lost on me that the people who believed in me at the beginning are my biggest blessing. I will forever and always value the clients who have made Casey Monda Art Advisory possible. You have entrusted your collection to me and that is no small thing. Please know how much I appreciate your vulnerability, willingness to take risks, and the trust you have placed in me to guide you on this meaningful journey.
I also cherish the new folks in this community who have risen up to meet Art I Saw & Liked and support this wild and crazy venture. This platform holds my whole heart and it is something I believe in to my very core. Showing people that it is possible to live with great art (without a big budget) and how to do it is my calling and every time you read my email, engage with what I have to say, and generally don’t completely ignore me, you are giving me the gift of fulfilling my purpose and passion. Thank you.
I am also stupendously grateful for my community partners like The Young Team, who took a leap with me and decided to turn their office into an art gallery. They have given me the opportunity to fulfill another dream of curating exhibitions, giving artists a voice, and creating events that bring people together and closer to art. And it is with that in mind, that I present my latest project. Introducing Cleveland Heights-based artist, Mel Rea!
It is unplanned but well-timed that Mel’s exhibition went up on the Young Team’s walls this week because her story is one that highlights the magic that happens when you listen to the inner voice that guides your life’s direction. Mel Rea began her artistic career as a ceramicist creating large figurative pieces with intricate details. A chance encounter with a bucket of beeswax in her grandparents’ basement sparked her curiosity about the potential of other media. Having worked in ceramics for 17 years, Mel was ready to take on a new challenge and began exploring how she might bring her years of experience in sculpture to a painting practice. Thus began her brief but torrid love affair with encaustic (a wax-based painting medium). While the soft satin finish of the beeswax initially lured her and replaced her love for clay glazes, she eventually wanted to be able to move more freely, intuitively, and spontaneously across the canvas. She began dabbling in acrylic, pastel, gouache, and oil sticks and she has never looked back.
Having fully abandoned the referential details that characterized her figurative sculptures of her early career, Mel’s current painting practice embraces abstract assemblages of colorful lines, shapes, splashes, drips, sprays, and scrapes. The resultant forms may suggest something concrete; but, that narrative would only be in the viewer’s mind. It is precisely this intuitive reaction that initiates the relationship with the painting that Mel desires. As evocative forms dance and weave themselves across the canvas, so too do stories, narratives, emotions, or reactions emerge. It is precisely this back and forth that vitalizes Mel’s work. While she is careful to channel warmth and connection into her compositions, she recognizes that anyone can bring any experience to a work. Once she has made her mark, she yields control to the eye of the beholder. The give and take of meaning-making between the artist and the viewer sets up a dynamic relationship that allows for infinitely open-ended interpretation.
Mel Rea completed her BFA in Ceramics at Kent State University. She currently lives and works in Cleveland Heights.
Now that you have read all about her, you must see her work in The Collection plus the other hundred or so pieces available for discovery there. If you’re local, let’s go have a coffee in the gorgeous space at The Young Team and look at her work together. All of the work is for sale and there are even some small works that would make excellent holiday gifts. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge!
NEXT WEEK…
Looking forward to December, I will be heading to Miami for the Super Bowl, ahem, I mean Miami Art Week. Tom-ay-to, tom-ah-to. In the next issue of Seen & Liked Lately, I will be outlining how I prep for the year’s grand finale and making a few FaceTime slots available so you can get in on the action. Whether you are in the market for your next statement piece or just curious about how an art fair looks and feels, I can be your boots on the ground. Slots will fill up fast and there will only be a few so make sure you grab one before they’re gone!
New in The Collection
Until Next Week–
Casey Monda | CEO & Art Advisor
Galleries That Get It: Charles Moffett Gallery
Casey Monda
Art Drop #04
I’ve admired the program at Charles Moffett for several years, but it was only recently that I really developed a relationship with them because of one gallerist who gets it–Hannah Root. To be honest, I don’t really know how Hannah found me but she piped up in response to one of my more fiery Substack posts (pretty sure it was this one). After exchanging some DMs of solidarity on ye’ old IG, we decided we needed to have brunch to hash it out further. It was at that teeny table at Balthazar that I shared with her my vision for Art I Saw & Liked. It felt so good to speak it out loud and Hannah listened so intently, offered up some critical thoughts and suggestions, and became the very first AISAL cheerleader. She has really walked with me every step of the way and provided invaluable feedback and support. So, THANK YOU HANNAH!!
Now, more about why YOU also need to know Hannah. If ever there was a go-getter, changemaker, get-it-doner in the art industry, it is Hannah. She recently transitioned to Charles Moffett after nearly a decade at Pace. Not only does her rolodex run deep, but she welcomes new people and ideas with wide open arms. On paper, she may have cut her teeth on doing things the mega-gallery way; but after one conversation with Hannah, you will instantly learn that she approaches the business of selling art with her own fresh verve. Getting behind the idea of a subscription-based art advisory service? Yep. A mahjong night at the gallery? Do it. Growing her audience on Substack? Sign her up.
She’s the most unpretentious, well-connected person you’ll ever meet. She does pilates in basketball shorts, plays basketball on her days off, and has an incredible eye for emerging talent.
If you’re in New York, you should absolutely make Charles Moffett a stop on your itinerary. In the mean time, read on to hear Hannah’s thoughts on being a gallerist and advice she has for new collectors plus peruse the newest additions to The Collection all from Charles Moffett.
Q & A with Hannah Root
How do you see your role as a gallerist?
Being a gallerist means being an educator first and foremost. Whether it is educating a collector about an artist, clarifying art world jargon for a novice, defining what a gallery is, or elucidating how to start a collection, nothing is out of bounds in this role. Each time a question is asked, the art world grows because it is another mind who feels empowered to remain curious. We are the conduit of information between the collector and the artist, which of course is a job you can’t take lightly!
What is an aspect of your job that most people might not consider?
One of the most overlooked parts of working in a gallery is the opportunity to learn about individuals to help them find an artist they love or the right artwork. Somebody opening up about their aesthetic inclinations can be really personal, so understanding what a privilege it is to create a space where people feel comfortable sharing is a great way to create honest dialogue about artists and artwork.
Do you have any advice for someone wanting to start collecting art?
For people who are interested in beginning their collections, I encourage you to not be bashful in asking the question on your mind. I love when people ask the price, because it means they are figuring out how the piece could work in their lives. Maybe it is a work that you could buy in the moment, or maybe it’s a good artist to earmark for future budgeting. Either way, you are educating yourself as to how to live with artwork that you love.
I am grateful to Hannah for her time in sharing with us and for cheering me on for the sidelines as I have developed this platform and continue to grow it!
Now, to the art!
Sam Bornstein
If you have been here long enough, you have probably picked up on the fact that I am not usually drawn to figurative art (meaning art with people in it). And when I do find figurative work I like, it is usually because the people populating the composition are not immediately in and of my own space. I suppose I personally need an element of separation between me and the figure and I think that happens in Sam’s work. I also find the color palette charming and bright but acidic and overpowering.
Gianna Dispenza
I like Dispenza’s openness to change and unpredictability. The work is abstract and for me the meaning lies in the making. Her additive process fundamentally alters the paint in ways she both understands and can’t anticipate. I find it to be a good metaphor for life. I also think she has a unique sense of composition that feels responsive to the altered state of her materials.
Maggie Ellis
Maggie clearly knows her art history. This one painting makes two obvious references to Edouard Manet’s Dejeuner Sur l’Herbe and George Seurat’s Sunday on La Grande Jatte. In her version though she updates the scene, the composition, and the color palette to feel like it was screen-grabbed from Instagram. In Ellis’s hands, the central theme of isolation from Seurat’s magnum opus is recast as the ubiquitous glowing screen that is shattering the relationship-building skills of young people across the world. The recumbent nude figure in the foreground occupies a similarly obscure role as her counterpart in Manet’s painting; and, I can only surmise that viewers should bring their own interpretations to this familiar yet elusive work.
Keiran Brennan Hinton
Hinton is a master of melding universal familiarity with nostalgia for a particular place. I often feel a longing or kindred connection to the places he depicts even if I don’t know exactly where they are. He documents the feeling a place gave him rather than the way it looked and that is my favorite kind of representational painting, whether it’s a landscape, an interior, or otherwise.
Silvia Heyden
I love a good opportunity to give due to an artist who deserved more attention than they got during their lifetime and Silvia Heyden is just that. While she gained some notoriety, particularly in the American Southeast, she should be better known than she is and I love that Charles Moffett is bringing attention to this 20th century textile artist.
Hopie Hill
Another artist who knows her art history, Hopie Hill carries on the tradition of symbol-rich still life painting of the Dutch Golden Age. Recasting familiar objects like citrus fruit, eggs, or snails, Hill reflects on her own personal journey and offers an opportunity for connection with the viewer as she opens up about her struggles.
Julia Jo
Jo’s work jumps back and forth between figuration and abstraction and deals with the miscues, missteps, and lost-in-translation moments she felt growing up between Korea and states across the US. Each mark is carefully calibrated to reveal and conceal. This work totally stands up in the three areas of evaluation I discussed last week!
Melissa Joseph
Another artist dealing with memory and family history, Melissa Joseph looks at how we occupy space, the labors of women, and the experience of being a second-generation American. Her work has a sculptural, almost-DIY quality to it but it is very much intentional and not for lack of skill. It feels vintage and close to home, telling intimate stories with unique materials She was also listed in the Artsy Vanguard 2025, so there’s that background check for ya!
I hope you have enjoyed reading all about one of my favorite NYC galleries and gallerists this week. It takes years of dedication and discernment to develop these relationships and I am so grateful to all of the gallerists who have worked with me along the way. Truly, galleries are essential cogs in the art industry machine. They spot and nurture great talent and help artists manage the business of being artists so that artists can do what they do best–clarify the world for the rest of us! The art industry can not survive without them, so find the ones that resonate with you and support them!
Thanks for being here!
Featured Art
Until Next Week–
Casey Monda | CEO & Art Advisor
What Makes The Cut?
Casey Monda
Art Drop #03
Good Sunday, my fellow art-lovers! I had a whole post about a favorite gallerist almost written for this weekend but I never got to finish it because I went to an art and design entrepreneurs retreat last week (a post on art for personal growth forthcoming) and time just got away from me. So, I am going to save that post for next week as I really would like to give her the time she deserves; and instead, this week, I’m going to give you a peek into how I decide what makes it into The Collection.
The headline here is that everything in The Collection is something that I would personally buy for myself or recommend to a client. In essence, every work gets the art advisor’s stamp of approval for one reason or another. If you see something that resonates and decide to pursue an acquisition, you can trust it. That is really what Art I Saw & Liked is all about–it’s about providing a platform for inspiration and discovery outside of the doomscroll as well as accessible art advisory services for a segment of the market that is historically underserved. But that’s the elevator pitch. Let’s dig in to how we get to the rubber stamping.
Quality
Quality is the first and most important criterion. Assigning a quality judgment to a work of art can be subjective, but I look at so much of it that I can instinctively judge if a work stands up or not. What goes into determining quality? Well, it has a lot to do with presentation. Does the work feel ready to be in the world? Do the marks feel intentional? Does the final product look the way it looks because the artist made a concerted decision to make it so? I find that asking these questions helps me keep my evaluation rooted in objectivity rather than if I personally like a work. As an advisor, I have to be able to see through the eyes of clients which requires that I take my personal opinion out of the equation.
Visual Analysis
Secondly and adjacent to quality is visual analysis. This is something we learn as students of art history to help us take an artist’s decision-making into account as we read a work of art. It helps assess intention and objectively evaluate whether or not an image is “working.” We look at the formal components such as line, color, shape, texture, form, and space as well as design elements like composition, balance, movement, emphasis, and proportion. In doing so, we can answer whether or not an artist is doing what they say they are doing. In other words, when I read an artist’s statement and then look at their work, do I see the connection? Do I see why an artist made the choice they did to arrive at a particular conclusion?
I think visual analysis also helps root out talent. Artists are visual storytellers. Some only work in a single language, while great artists are able to translate their stories into a universal language that transcends individual taste or style. I am not saying that every work in The Collection is going to make it to that level, but I do think the artists represented here have some element of transcendent storytelling. Will they all be Picasso or Rothko? No. Do I think they achieve what they ostensibly set out to do according to their statements? Yes.
Background
Finally, I consider an artist’s background. This one can get tricky because some artists are self-taught. You do not want to automatically toss out an artist just because they don’t have a fancy MFA and a CV riddled with big-name galleries. Plus at the sub-$15k end of the market, you are not often going to find the traditional markers of success, yet. When this is the case, you have to rely heavily on your quality assessment. Typically though, an artist in The Collection will have at least a group show at a reputable gallery under their belt or maybe even a solo show. They will have found their way into the company of more established artists somehow. They might not yet have representation but galleries are starting to notice them and see how their work resonates with their audience. This is why it is really important to find gallerists you trust.
To put it into practice, here are the five artists I added to The Collection this week and why:
Mary Finlayson
I like Finlayson’s work because the bright colors and simplified forms harken to nostalgia and memory. As time passes and events become memories we recall, the details fade but the contours remain. Moreover, I find the application of mosaic in some works to be apt to describing the joy in the everyday. The teeny tesserae (art-ese for tiles) are the minutiae that make up the tableau of our lives.
Du Chau
Du Chau ticks all of the boxes of quality, visual analysis, and artist’s background. The work is superbly executed and will withstand tests of time. You might say it is archival quality. Visually, the work stands up to the artist’s objectives of trying to create a quiet and contemplatively charged space. Contemplative and charged are not typically words you find to describe a single work of art and yet here it works.
Eleanor Conover
I have loved this work for several years and I think it is getting better and better. Any work that riffs with Helen Frankenthaler is going to grab my attention. In Conover’s case, she often brings physical dimension to the work making it more sculptural by bowing the stretcher bars and adding pieces of slate or granite to her abstract forms.
Katie Paterson
If you have asked me lately who my favorite artist is, I probably said Katie Paterson. She is a deep thinker and if you try to get on her wavelength, your mind will blow up. Her work invites the viewer to both consider our environmental reality as well as imagine works of art made out of physically impossible materials from that environment. It’s conceptual and abstract but also very much an object in the present that really couldn’t be anything other than what it is.
Madeline Hollander
Madeline Hollander brings her ballet background to bear on her visual art practice. Using her knowledge of movement and choreography, Hollander creates works that invite the viewer to mentally move through time and space and embody the marks of the two-dimensional works.
Make sure to go check out the rest of what I added to The Collection this week! And don’t forget to share the love: invite friends to join Art I Saw & Liked, heart your favorite works in The Collection, and shoot me an email with questions!
Katie Paterson, O I, Mixed media using pigment ground from the fossilized forms of the first cellular life on earth, 20 1/8 x 20 1/8 in
Eleanor Conover, From The Steep Slope, dye, oil, and graphite on sewn linen and polyester with bowed oak, beveled pine, and marble, 63.5 x 43.5 x 4 in
Mary Finlayson, This Must Be the Place, acrylic gouache on canvas, 36 x 36 in
Until Next Week–
Casey Monda | CEO & Art Advisor
The First 20 Seconds
Casey Monda
Art Drop #02
Hi all and happy November! I, for one, am pretty pleased that October and Halloween are behind us; and, we can look forward to the festivities ahead! As we dive into the fastest-paced months of the year, I thought it would be a great time to launch a new series that I’m currently dubbing The First 20 Seconds. I plan to share how different art industry professionals approach art they have never seen before and find a way to engage with it. Today, you get to hear from me! Next time, it will be someone much cooler.
I am sure many of you have read this stat but research shows that the average museum-goer spends about 27 seconds in front of an artwork. 27 seconds! To me, it’s pretty amazing that the information superhighway in our brains can process an image that quickly and decide if it is something with which we want to engage. Since so much of this work is done practically subconsciously, heretofore, I have not spent much time thinking about what really attracts me to a work in those first critical seconds. So, I did a deep dive.
To ascertain what stops me in my tracks, I scrolled back through my photos from art fairs past because that is a pretty good record of what slowed my roll and made me look twice. The first thing I noticed is that the work has to jostle me out of my norm. It is sort of like Mel Robbins’ counting backwards trick. You have to force your brain out of its habit and reroute the thought patterns. Art that makes me stop does just that.
What would be an example of a piece that shakes up the neural pathways? I mean, right, wrong or indifferent, a banana duct-taped to a wall would be one example. But if we’re staying in the sub-$15k realm, then here are three artists that have commandeered my first 20 seconds and why.
I did not have to go scroll back very far to find three stunner artists that illustrate my point perfectly. I encountered all three of these artists at NADA NYC in May. I was actually familiar with two of them before the fair, but the work is just that good that despite its familiarity, I was still drawn to its novelty.
Jude Griebel, represented by Massey Klein, is one of my favorite emerging sculptors working today. The work is an exercise in oxymoron. It’s both playful and dark, simultaneously light and heavy, at once strong and fragile, vociferous yet quiet. It stops me for the reason that most surrealism stops people: something is familiar but not quite right and you want to stop to figure out what. (User tip: if you click on Jude’s name at the top of this paragraph, it will take you to a page where you can learn more about the work and the artist.)
Similarly yet differently (a phrase that would have all my grad school professors screaming at me), Pauline Shaw’s particular brand of abstraction is just familiar enough to make viewers want to think further on it. It has that tip-of-the-tongue quality that makes you want to get there. At least, that was my experience with it when I encountered it for the first time in the booth of Naranjo 141 (now defunct) also at NADA NYC. Full disclosure: I ended up buying one of the works at NADA as my husband and I have a particular penchant for work that has to do with the cosmos. She recently had a two-person show at Each Modern, which is where the two works featured here were exhibited.
And finally, Kevin Umaña. He is like geometric abstraction meets quilting but its ceramic so neither painting nor textile–how do you categorize that. He defies categorization. (That’s my real-life stream of consciousness in the first 20 seconds, btw.) His work engages with his ancestral heritage, at once paying homage to these people while remaining in an extremely modern visual language. And it just so happens that his show at The Pit LA opens tonight!
So, for me, the first 20 seconds is all about work that wiggles my brain out of its flow like “a stream that meets a boulder.” What makes me stay with it? Well, that is anybody’s ballgame!
Did Pauline, Kevin, or Jude spark your curiosity? Click on images to learn more about each of them or shoot me an email with your questions.
Daniel Gordon, Color Light Study (Knives and Glass Plate), pigment print with UV lamination, 18 x 24 in
Kevin Umaña, Digging Deep Into Meditation, acrylic, oil, vinyl paint, flock, sand, oil pastel, ink, gouache and ceramics on linen, 16 x 14 x 2 in
Until Next Week–
Casey Monda | CEO & Art Advisor
Ahem, Is This Thing On? Mic Check, 1-2.
Casey Monda
Art Drop #01
Welcome to the new Art I Saw and Liked, the only subscription-based art advisory service that meets novice collectors where they are–at the starting line. I developed Art I Saw and Liked to make art collecting easy, approachable, accessible and inspiring. There are a lot of art platforms out there that enable folks to see a lot of art online. In my experience, scrolling those can be like drinking out of a fire hose and you can never really trust that what you are seeing is actually good and worth your money. Art I Saw and Liked is different. Every single piece of art or artist featured on this site has been vetted by me and is something I would buy for myself or recommend to a client. And just like my policy with my private art advisory service, no artist or gallery will ever pay me to be on this site. Just like my clients pay me for the value I add to every acquisition, subscribers to Art I Saw and Liked pay for my eye, judgement, and opinions.
Moreover, Art I Saw and Liked is about empowerment. It empowers the new generation of collectors to hone their taste, develop their own eye, and be confident in what they like. While the art industry is built on relationships and often rewards those who have been around the longest, everyone has to start somewhere. My hope is that AISAL becomes that place to start. After all, that’s the whole premise. Start with what you like.
Here’s what you can expect from AISAL:
–The Collection – The Collection is the heart and soul of AISAL. It is a sortable, filterable, and likeable database of the art I have seen and loved. We are launching with several dozen selections from my extensive private database that I have built over the past few years. Each week, I will add to The Collection, so what you see now is just a sniff of what you will get.
–Seen & Liked Lately – Seen & Liked Lately is the blog that I’ll publish weekly and send out as a newsletter email. I’ll discuss topics related to the art industry and release the newest additions to The Collection.
-Galleries & Museums Map – Not a lot of explanation is required here. The map is actually a map of galleries and museums around the world that I know and love. I am always adding to it and it updates in real time. This is the tool I wish I had when I started my collecting journey. It is a great place to start if you are travelling and want to see some art.
-Likes/Dislikes – As you are scrolling the database, you will be able to like or dislike any art work. You will be able to see how many others have done the same (but not who has done so!). Then you can go to your Likes list to see everything you have selected. This is a great place to start to see your taste and style in an organic way.
For me, the most rewarding part of this work is helping clients find pieces that spark joy, tell their story, and create lasting connections with the art they love. I wanted to extend my passion, my knowledge, and my services to a broader audience than I could reach as a one-woman show offering one-to-one art advisory services. AISAL is the result of that desire. Thank you for being here— I hope this platform inspires you to explore, connect, and learn more about yourself as you begin your journey into art collecting.
Exceptional Art. Expert Advice. Easy Access. Step into my personally curated world of contemporary art.
Featured Art
Francisco Moreno, Yoga Squirrel, 2025, Acrylic on canvas stretched on panel, 14 x 11 in, $6,000
Vanessa Wallace-Gonzales, Chrysalis Vessel 3, ceramic, epoxy putty, resin, foraged material, and acrylic paint, 15 1/2 x 14 x 13 in, $5,000
Isabella Innis, A Stream for Fish to Swim, 2025, Oil stick and oil on paper, 30 x 22 in, $3.600
Maris Van Vlack, Storm Descending, 2024, Hand-dyed and wove mixed fibers and rope, jacquard weaving, industrial knitting, paint, 81 x 69 x 20 in, $15,000
Dahlia Elsayed, Day 22, 2025, Acrylic on paper, 16 x 12 in, $2,200
Until Next Week–
Casey Monda | CEO & Art Advisor