The Affordable Art Fair is back!

We are thrilled to be participating in the 2021 Affordable Art Fair New York this month at the ​Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea! At booth B46, we will represent eight exceptional artists, giving them an opportunity to have their work shown for acquisition, broaden their audience, and share their talents at one of the largest art experiences in the world.

​​As we lead up to the event, find out more about Agora Gallery’s exhibiting artists William Atkinson, Belle Roth, Lliam Greguez, Marshall Gould, Sal Ponce Enrile, Mark Schiff, and Christiane Palpant will all be showing works with us. We know you will love the presented artworks as much as we do, so be sure to reserve a time slot and some see the show!

The return of the fair this year is a beacon of hope for those who need the arts more than ever this year. Our exhibiting artists wanted to share some exclusive insight into the event with our audience. In particular, they want to share why they enjoy being a part of the event, how they hope the audience responds to their work, and why they feel that this event is especially important to both artists and visitors this year.

William Atkinson
“We have all seen enough graphs over the course of the pandemic, let’s look at some art instead.”

William is glad to see that the Affordable Art Fair this year will be one of the first large-scale art events that people in New York will be able to attend since 2019. It is an important milestone of progress and what is possible. He hopes that people have a moment of connection with his artwork – perhaps a temporary exchange of energy and emotion. It is always an underlying goal of his creative process to capture a single expressive moment for a viewer and share it in an authentic way. This year, he feels that people need a moment to escape all the stress and emotions of the last year. It will be nice for someone to look at something and be reminded that there is beauty and opportunity in the world, not just statistics and projections. He says, “On a personal note, I am honored and excited to have my work featured in a New York art fair. I have been to many fairs over the years and it is uniquely special to know that my work will be on exhibition.”

The artist first exhibited his work publicly on the streets of Los Angeles under the pseudonym “insurgency inc.”. As he progressed into fine art exhibitions, William always wanted to keep true to this initial form of expression. His first gallery exhibitions incorporated found objects with imagery rooted in street art. Although has evolved into fine art, he maintains a connection to his early works. Street art forced William to create in a single expressive moment. He continues this practice in his current studio work, making large-scale pieces in one session. While many artists create a piece over days or months, William does not revisit any of his pieces once the initial emotion has passed, ensuring it captures the energy of that single expressive moment. He works across multiple mediums with a consistent tone and voice echoing his early artistic roots.

Belle Roth
“Art allows us to be in a place where we can speak with our inner self and assures us that we will be okay in the future.”

Belle is looking forward to participating in the Affordable Art Fair for the opportunity it provides to connect, bond, and share experiences with a broad audience in a highly curated show. She hopes that her work ignites passion in the audience to live a purposeful life, to strive to be a better person every day, and to generously share their blessings with others whenever they can. As art has the unique ability to provide a channel for our emotions and allow us to heal and connect with the outer world, Belle feels that Art is needed more than ever in the time of COVID.

Roth explores human interconnection through her use of color, light, and architectural influences. Rooted in abstraction, her works are composed of deconstructed forms, unearthed and highlighted by both line and shape. The artist vigorously applies textured acrylics, spray paints, and gold leaf to her canvases, creating organic forms, repeating patterns, and expressive moments. Her works draw in elements from her Southeast Asian roots and celebrate joyous, unexplored opportunities. Roth creates powerful narratives centered around family, community, equality, and overcoming adversity; she intends her work to inspire ideas about our collective capabilities and hopes to inspire the pursuit of a better world.

Mark Schiff
“My artwork creates a different emotion for everyone”

Connecticut-based artist Mark Schiff creates eye-catching acrylic, watercolor, and oil paintings that sizzle with energy. Schiff deliberately builds layers of paint on his canvases with dynamic, powerful brushstrokes. His work is unified by energetic bursts of color and texture that keep his viewers constantly engaged.

He paints directly and spontaneously, letting his emotions spill out onto the canvas. His paintings are inspired by life experiences. In his series of waterlily paintings, Schiff blends harmony and chaos by presenting soothing imagery and colorways with harmony, yet the wild strokes create dramatic intrigue. Some have compared the style to a combination of Claude Monet and Jackson Pollack.

Mark Schiff is a believer in the solidarity of the human race. His extensive travels have taken him to locations throughout the world giving him a capacity to feel humility, pain, gratitude, and love. These themes bring him the freedom that governs his creative process.

Mark is very pleased to be able to return to New York as the city gets control over COVID-19. He is thrilled at the opportunity to see his work along with the other creative artists exhibiting at the fair. He hopes that the audience appreciates the experience of his work; that they contemplate his use of energetic brushstrokes amidst serene water lilies and consider his intention. Mark feels that in the world’s continued fight against COVID-19, “people need art…to provide an escape, thought and passion. My artwork creates a different emotion for everyone.”

Sal Ponce Enrile
“Art nourishes the soul, especially at a time where our hope and optimism are tested.”

Sal’s artwork depicts controlled chaos. The artist embraces the use of mixed media, acrylics, and textures that add character and depth to the uncensored expression of her work. Throughout her career, she’s always sought out opportunities to enhance the lives of others through her art. Her political background gave her the opportunity to witness the real challenges people in extreme poverty are facing daily. The genuinely kind and generous people she met in those experiences have given her a unique perspective. Today, reflecting on those moments remains her greatest inspiration. Sal now uses her art as a platform to voice the complexities of her experiences. From the colors to the composition, her approach and curiosity to mix one style or technique have resulted in her unique identity, leaving her art with an intrigued and mysterious feel.

Sal strongly believes in the Affordable Art Fair’s mission to make art accessible to everyone, and she feels that the fair is a great entry point for those who want to invest in good art without spending a fortune. She is excited to be joining the prestigious event that celebrates a vibrant, diverse art market. She hopes that those who view her work are moved by it, and take part in her rich narratives. She wants people to make a connection with her work through their own interpretation of it; nothing makes her work feel more worthwhile than when it inspires a viewer to take a moment to be with their own thoughts and feelings. Sal feels that art and creativity in all forms are more important now than ever. She says, “Art brings us beauty, solace, and momentary joy… so necessary in times of struggle.”

Lliam Greguez
“Art speaks to the mind as a whole and reaches into where language is too limiting for expressing ideas.”

Photographer Lliam Greguez is inspired by Earth’s most basic elements, finding complex beauty in ice, air, and water. As a professional creative arts therapist, Greguez prioritizes the healing and clarifying capabilities that artwork can have on the audience and artist alike. Based in New York City the artist works in local hospitals using music to improve children’s emotional, physical, and mental health.

Greguez celebrates wonder and appreciation for Earth in his yearly mountain hikes, describing his work as ‘a micro documentary’ of Earth’s ice which is being affected by climate change. From afar his artworks look abstract as though the images were painted or drawn, but they are in fact photographs depicting observations of nature particularly around the Catskill Mountains. Greguez uses macro-photography to capture details of textures and scenes such as thickened ice and frozen flora. Something as simple as the interaction of water and temperature provides inspiration for Greguez who predominantly prints the artwork using sublimated metal. He captures moments of ever-changing states where air, liquid, and solid morph between themselves.

The Affordable Art Fair is a new venue and a broader audience for Lliam. He looks forward to being surrounded by other creative works and having his work exposed to those drawn in by other galleries and interests. For those who view his work as abstract imaginations, Lliam hopes they marvel at the patterns within patterns, the details of intermingled textures, and the impression that it is a painting.

For those who understand his pieces as actual images of ice, he hopes they gain a deeper appreciation for the wondrous work of art that this planet is. It is Lliam’s belief that “people need art, even more, when surrounded by the effects of a pandemic. As a celebration of form and color, [art is] a part of life that is always beautiful no matter the situation.”

Christiane Palpant
“Art can bring the fresh spark of creativity right into our homes and hearts.”

Christiane Palpant is an American artist living and working in Atlanta, Georgia. She is the daughter of award-winning portrait artist Gail Palpant, who has passed on the artistic skill and tradition of oil painting to her daughter. From her mother, Christiane learned her strong sense of color and formed her first ideas of communicating through an artistic medium. Christiane’s work features abstract horizons and landscapes in which she uses dramatic and bold colors, to create psychologically and aesthetically engaging oil works on canvas.
Over the past two decades, Christiane generally used art as a catharsis from her “left-brained” job in finance. Everything changed in 2018 when a health crisis left her bedridden for nine months. Christiane was an active athlete and training for the Birkebeiner, a cross-country ski marathon when she developed Pericarditis, a rare disease of the sac around the heart. She nearly lost her life and ultimately had open-heart surgery. It is Christiane’s belief that we must remain positive no matter what life hands us, and as a result, she has picked up the paintbrush and found a new focus and intention with her art.

Christiane is most excited about participating in the Affordable Art Fair with Agora Gallery because the event has such deep roots in tapping the market of emerging artists from around the world. In her abstract landscapes, she aims to transcend time and space and invite the viewer into the hope and resilience that tomorrow brings. As for the importance of art after a trying year, Christiane states, “our globe has never needed art more during recent history and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Art heals, strikes the imagination, and enlivens our spirits. Art can bring the fresh spark of creativity right into our homes and hearts.”

Fabio Sanzogni

Through Fabio’s works, you can find and read the modern society in evolution and moreover discover a society of the future. He uses bold colors that express both emotion and experience. The perfection of forms in his pieces is subordinated to the emphasis of the energy of a wavelength that is perhaps indigenous to the color within the scheme of the piece itself. The space, not the definite object, is the major subject in his paintings; the one that carries the energy of life for the becoming of a new creation. He believes that knowledge of technique, an understanding of mankind and what is behind our desire to create, and a careful study of our many costumes and ideas, can give the artist those means for contributing to the progression and evolution of art.
His works are embedded with the philosophy that art is a civilization’s map and the only real way in securing a place for it in history.

Marshall Gould
“Art is a wonderful expression of the human spirit!”

Marshall Gould’s sharp, high contrast black-and-white photographic prints can be characterized by diagonal framing, clean compositions, dramatic highlights, and strong, luxurious shadows. Often taking candid, documentary-style shots on location, Gould’s latest subject matter might involve an American veteran cemetery or a homeless person, making these gritty works as conceptually dense as they are compositionally superb. Usually incorporating elements of the earth and/or sky, Gould’s works are about co-existence and reference the stylistic philosophies of early black-and-white “Golden Age” photography including the classic work of Ansel Adams. Adopting the mantra “Think globally and shoot locally,” Gould carries his camera every time he leaves the house, aiming to convey a vibrant and provocative visual narrative about the land, culture, and residents of his current locale.

Marshall Gould was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and received his Bachelor of Industrial Design from the College of Visual and Performing Arts, Syracuse University. He currently works in Oakdale, CA, known as the “Cowboy Capital of the World” and Silicon Valley.

At the Affordable Art Fair this year, Marshall hopes that the audience will experience a new sense of freedom, awareness, and appreciation of the world around them through the eyes of the artists, including himself, exhibiting work at the fair. During the challenging times of COVID-19, he feels that “people need a reminder that the human spirit will prevail if we hold on to our dreams and our life’s purpose.”

To learn more about where and when you can visit us at the fair, please visit the Affordable Art Fair website.