Patty Carroll, Cooking The Goose, $5000, Edition of 10 (All Photos By Gail: Click on Any Image to Enlarge for Detail))
This year, New Yorkers definitely needed a seasonal hard reboot, and the Spring edition of the biannual Affordable Art Fair brought much-appreciated flashes of color and whimsy into the City during its exciting four-day run in late March. Whether you’re an experienced collector, someone looking to invest in a single piece for your home, or an art lover who just enjoys the inspiration and joy of browsing, the Affordable Art Fair is a great place to expose yourself to (and purchase) art from a finely curated selection of cutting-edge, contemporary galleries from across the globe. For me, this recent fair really embraced the spirt of fun and humor in art. Let’s look at a collection of my favorite fun artworks spotted at the AAFNYC for Spring 2019!
Ara Cho creates these soft Cactus Sculptures for Gallery Art Plaza, located in Seoul, South Korea. Made from stuffed, sewn and embellished leather, they sell for just $400 each.
Here’s a closer look at a piece she calls City Oassis – Ferocactus A (2019). Unique and super cute!
Among the best bargains of the fair, these fun stoneware and glazed ceramic sculptures of Cake Slices, by Liv Atonecchia were selling for just $54 each! I found them in the booth for Miller Gallery of Charleston, SC.
Miles Purvis Daniel made this bold and colorful collaged portrait of the late, great David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust ($6500), also found at Miller Gallery.
Displayed in that same gallery, just in front of Ziggy, was this imaginative sculpture by Olivia Bonilla, who manifested the dreamlike vision of a fancy Cupcake with NYC Yellow Cabs imbedded in its sky-high swirl of frosting. Entitled Heatwave, it was priced to move at just $225!
Online gallery ArtStar teamed up at AAFNYC with New York artists Robyn Blair and Name Glo to transform their booth display into an installation of candy-themed artworks that had fair-goers stopping in their tracks to grab a photo or two for their Instagram feeds!
Pink Roller Skate ($4500)
These visually enchanting sculpted pieces incorporate specialty candies suspended in a hand-poured resin and a Plexiglas case. IThe Name Glo neon-look LED lights are sculpted by artisans based in New York.
Blue Rainbow $4500; Purple Lips $3000
You can get a better look at ArtStar’s display wall as you admire this monumental Red Glitter Popsicle sculpture ($2850) by Betsy Enzenberger from just across the aisle at Retrospect Galleries, which is based in Australia.
Betsy, who lives in Los Angeles, also had these smaller Popsicle sculptures for sale, priced at $200 – $300 per piece. They are so cool!
Visit her website at This Link to inquire about commissions!
Here’s another Popsicle Series by Argentinian artist Maximiliano Pecce, selling for $4500 per sculpture at Evan Lurie Gallery of Carmel, Indiana.
Each ice cream treat measures 40-inches by 24-inches and is made from melted recycled plastic covered with colorful plastic beads. Check it out.
Maximiliano’s work is an effort to increase awareness of the amount of plastic waste produced daily by our modern society, while retaining a nostalgic energy to those younger days of playing with plastic beads! I like it!
Sebastian Burdon’s Pink Happy Dog ($2350) was found at Tag Fine Arts of London, UK!
French artist Ortaire De Coupigny works with various materials and pigments to create his unique painted fish before suspending them in paraffin wax and covering them with transparent resin. Genuine sardine tins (manufactured in his local area) are used where possible to create an interesting dynamic between an industrial, mass-produced everyday object and art. The tins sell for $170 to $249, each.
Ortaire is representedat the Affordable Art Fair by at Ronen Art Gallery of Amsterdam.
Nine assorted-color, laser-cut Plexiglass seated Buddhas in a box frame (Nine, $950) is the work of Israeli artist Tal Nehoray. Found at Contempop Gallery, with locations in Tel Aviv and NYC.
This freeform wall sculpture of polished and varnished bronze is entitled Purple Splash ($8900) by French artist Philippe Berry. Photographed in the booth for Galerie Duret, Paris.
Imagine the time and meticulous attention to detail that went into creating Badly Behaved Bottles ($8800) by LoveJordan — a collaboration of artists Jonny Love and Samuel Jordan. Let’s take a closer look.
Wow! Consider the effort that went into filling each tiny bottle with paint, and then arranging them just so. LoveJordan are represented by Woolff Gallery of London.
This next piece mines a similar idea vein as the LoveJordan collaboration, but then takes it ‘to eleven,’ as the saying goes. Peek & Choose Multicolored ($6300) is a one-of-a-kind sculpture by Stéphane Gautier make up of sixty bespoke bottles of nail polish displayed in a Plexiglass case. Take a closer look and you’ll realize that each bottle bears the instantly recognizable logo of a well-known brand, celebrity, film, pop culture franchise, etc.
I absolutely love this.
Photographed at Galerie Virginie Barrou Planquart of Paris.
Here’s some other random cool stuff that stood out in the crowd!
Egg Cup With French Bull Dog Salt Shaker ($6500) by CJ Green, spotted in the booth for Byard Art of Cambridge, UK.
Green Robo Love ($800) by Carl Smith at Artspace Warehouse, Los Angeles, California.
Composition No 181 ($2500) by Mara Minuzzo at Lustre Contemporary, located in Canada.
Mara Minuzzo also painted the amazing collection of Mid-century Modern Chairs ($800 each), which are the perfect complement to display alongside this totally rad photograph of a vintage Pink Cadillac by Patrick Lajoie, entitled Rosy Days Are Here (In The Round) ($6000) which comes in a handmade aluminum frame!
And that wraps up our recap the Spring 2019 Affordable Art Fait, NY! See you again in the Fall!
