Photos: Andrea Ceraso
Like an actor headlining on Broadway or a musician playing Carnegie Hall, Heather Gaudio has opened Heather Gaudio Fine Art at 382 Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich!
Heather Gaudio Fine Art is already well known in the area as a showcase for stunning and thought-provoking art. The gallery has moved from a landmark location on the corner of Elm and South in New Canaan, after a successful 12 year tenure in town.
But Greenwich is ‘big time’ in the gallery biz…and the new Heather Gaudio Fine Art is superb! The storefront on Greenwich Avenue, between the Apple Store and Railroad Avenue, looks like ‘the Tiffany’ of art galleries. The large space on the first floor is an ideal scale to present several distinct shows or installations at the same time. As a bonus, the rooftop event space allows for the display of outdoor works.
Heather Gaudio Fine Art features investment-quality modern and contemporary art, with a focus on paintings, works on paper, sculpture, photography, and other textural work. “We favor artwork that we consider to be ‘well executed’ and are proud to show a wide variety of art that is created in meaningfully different ways. We love working with artists who use very different techniques. Most of the work we represent is ‘process-based’, which means the artists use common materials to create uncommonly beautiful objects. And we have a particular focus on emerging female artists,” Heather explains.
The opening exhibition at the new Greenwich location, ‘Making Their Mark: 7 Women in Abstraction’, illustrates the breadth, and also the focus, of the artists the gallery features. These women share a dynamic approach to creating their works, and each push the boundaries in their art forms to create wildly different art. Kathleen Jacobs wraps canvases on tree trunks, rubbing and applying paint over a period of months, making a record of not only the bark markings but the outdoor elements as well. Jessica Drenk uses discarded printed material and junk mail to create forms that seem naturally made, such as slices of marble or geological strata. Jae Ko combines traditional Sumi inks with adding machine paper to create stunning sculptures and installations. Japanese artist Maya Makino is showcasing, for the first time in the United States, her paintings created with gofun, made of ground shell lime, which she layers on Japanese paper and submerges in Indigo pigment. Ann Gardner uses hand-blown glass to create beautiful orbs and globes that “hold a breath” and play with light and transparency. Hyun Jung Ahn’s quiet, hermetic paintings incorporate stitching as a form of mark making, while Kathleen Kucka’s work uses fire and heated tools to create burn marks on her canvases. The exhibit is stimulating!
While the move to Greenwich puts Heather Gaudio Fine Art on the national - and even international - stage, the team works hard to ensure it maintains the approachability for which they’ve become known. The new location has the feeling of a Chelsea Gallery showing ‘museum quality’ works, but pricing for some works starts at very accessible levels.
Still, no matter how great a space and address, it’s Heather Gaudio Fine Art’s team of talented gallerists and art advisers - including Heather, Managing Director Christine Romaniello, Director Rachael Palacios, Registrar Jennifer Burbank and Preparator and Conservator, Bob Schwarz - that sets Heather Gaudio Fine Art apart.
The team is all about being approachable,Heather Gaudio
“We want the experience of coming into Heather Gaudio Fine Art to be fun, and we do everything we can to take the intimidation factor out of the process. At the most basic level, we greet everyone with a friendly ‘hello’, and never leave a customer to wander around worrying about what to ask. But more fundamentally, whether you’re a first-time buyer or building an esteemed collection, we work to make acquiring art a comfortable and enjoyable process. We understand there are people who don’t know what they like when it comes to art, really just want some advice on selecting art that will work where they want to place it in their home, and that the decision may simply be driven by color, size or price. We recognize that some people know just what they like, and just want us to identify or explain art or an artist who may, or may not, be exhibited in the gallery. Our primary objective is to provide a bespoke collecting experience for each client. Our best advertisement has always been word-of-mouth referral.”
And it’s actually beyond the walls of the gallery - in the art advisory business - that Heather and her team are most excellent! “Of course we are very loyal to our artists as they are to us, but sometimes we need to look beyond our roster to round-out a collection. Clients come to us with specific requests and we’ve been known to source works from around the globe. We welcome every kind of client, from novice to connoisseur, on the art advisory side of the business like we do in the gallery!” Heather says. “We’re pleased to work with someone who is just starting to collect, but we also have the expertise to advise the most sophisticated collector on art, an artist, and investment. We represent a large and diverse international clientele and hundreds of investment-quality collections, and provide services relating to all facets of art acquisition and ownership.”
“Anyone interested in our services - please do not hesitate to call!” Heather invites. “I promise we’ll have an interesting conversation about art and the art you like, and together we’ll determine the aesthetic and sensibility that will work for you. Nothing is more satisfying to us than our long-term client relationships.”
As featured in the November/December 2023 issue of Bedford & New Canaan Magazine