BY DAVID TATGE
Jennifer Mathy and I opened Watershed Gallery in 2012 with one goal: To provide the emerging art buyer with an entry to the seemingly imposing ”” sometimes baffling ”” art market.
We represent emerging and mid-career artists in a range of media, from painting and printmaking to photography and sculpture. The gallery features local and global artists, producing abstract and semi-representational art. We rotate our solo and group shows 4-5 times a year and aim to provide our clients with work that creates emotional engagement ”” rather than simple reaction. We have launched an annual community art project, encouraged young and aspiring artists through mini exhibitions, including a fundraising event for the Molly Ann Tango Foundation and contributed to the arts community by serving on Ridgefield”™s municipal arts council.
Watershed Gallery.
We”™ve developed a fully integrated marketing and communications platform, with public relations and press, above the line advertising and direct mail. Social marketing plays an increasingly important role.
To spread the word that art is for all, we publish “Art 101” weekly on Facebook. “Art 101” breaks down the art world, its history, artists, techniques and individual works into bite-sized pieces. We also engage clients and reach prospects through Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter.
Our current exhibition, titled “Graphique,” features art that brings ideas to life through shapes and geometrical text, in some cases illustrating how our personal interactions and our forms of communication are rapidly changing.
The “Hans Fischer Solo Exhibition” opens Saturday, April 26. Fischer”™s acrylic paintings feature hand-made paper and encaustics (bees wax) that yield multilayered surfaces that the viewer wants to reach out and touch, to connect with in an almost physical way. This desire is heightened by contrasts of light evoked from, say, a morning so sunny that you have to squint, and shadows so deep that the light disappears entirely.
Simply put, our art is beautiful. This is something that is often overlooked in the world of contemporary art and one of the reasons people sometimes shy away from it. Art is there to be loved. It”™s why we do what we do.
