Hello friends and supporters of Page Bond Gallery,
The beginning of the year marks the wrap of my first full quarter as the new owner and director of the gallery. I would like to take a moment to reflect on my first few months in this role and provide a glimpse into my vision for 2024 and beyond.
As many of you know, gallery founder Page Bond sold her West Main Street location in the Fall of 2022 and transitioned to a virtual only business. This transition led to new learnings including the revelation that our collectors were still interested in acquiring art digitally.
Today much of our efforts are geared towards showing art online. We curate public and private digital catalogs and produce renderings of art placed in homes, offices, and public collections. These virtual tools have opened new doors to us and we are thrilled to connect with collectors around the world and are grateful for the opportunity to show and remote the work of our artists anywhere.
More than ever, I am grateful to the community around me. I have been welcomed with tremendous support and enthusiasm for carrying on the gallery’s rich legacy. In particular I feel fortunate for a group of wonderful professionals in the Interior Design community who have given us opportunities to propose artwork for their projects near and far, especially Elly Poston Interiors, Janie Molster Design, Avery Frank Designs, Braunholer Design Associates, and more. Bringing art and design together is a real passion, and I feel lucky each and every day to do it.
Art Advisor : Hilyard Art Advisory, Lauren Hilyard
There is still nothing as impactful as seeing artwork in person, so we are immensely grateful to 3North for the incredible partnership we have and for their vision to create a community space with rotating art exhibitions. This is where we have shown artwork since Spring 2023 and have hosted countless receptions, lunches, and artist talks.
I am particularly proud of the current exhibition GOODWILL, which was my first effort at curating a group show of this scale. The exhibition introduced a new partnership with SCAN, Stop Child Abuse Now, which we’re excited to continue supporting through the exhibition’s conclusion on January 24, 2024.
I am often asked the question “how will you find your artists?”. With the acquisition of the gallery, I have inherited the representation of nearly 60 artists that have been cultivated over the years. It is a privilege to take on the responsibility for showing and promoting their work. Over the past few months I have devoted myself to establishing relationships with these talented individuals and charting plans for their futures. I am so proud of the strength of our gallery program and am energized by finding new ways to show and place their art.
Gradually and with great consideration, I will begin to introduce new artists to our program. As an indication of what’s to come, I am thrilled to introduce America Martin, an internationally represented Colombian-American artist based in Los Angeles. America Martin’s paintings, which she thinks of as anthropological, are concerned with depictions of her indigenous heritage and its visual culture. Her works characteristically feature chunky and exaggerated human proportions, strong contour lines, and minimal shading – a style influenced by both folk art and modernist paintings. Learn more about the artist and explore her work through the catalog linked here.
Up next for the gallery is the 12th annual VIEWFIND group photography exhibition.
I am excited to show the work of a number of our represented artists and welcome a guest exhibitor, Rachel Cobb who is a NYC-based photographer and author of Mistral: The Legendary Wind of Provence. We look forward to sharing more details with you soon and look forward to what’s to come.
Sincerely,
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Ashley R. Millen