When Galleries Are Out of Touch With Art Buyers

For years, I’ve believed that many art galleries are no longer aligned with the people who actually buy art.

This isn’t an attack on galleries as institutions—there are beautiful works hanging on gallery walls. But too often, galleries repeat what feels safe, familiar, and historically approved rather than responding to how collectors actually live, feel, and decorate today.

Walk into many galleries and you’ll see the same patterns over and over: soft pastel palettes, impressionistic landscapes, predictable abstracts, or traditional work that feels comfortable but rarely surprising. On the other end of the spectrum, some “modern” galleries lean toward high-gloss minimalism or work that feels intentionally strange—more concept than connection.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these styles. The issue arises when nearly every wall looks the same. At that point, you have to ask: who are galleries really curating for—the buyer, or each other?

My own work doesn’t fit neatly into existing categories. It’s not flat. It’s not traditional. It doesn’t politely stay on the wall and behave like a painting is “supposed” to behave. My paintings are sculptural, dimensional, and tactile—existing somewhere between painting and sculpture. That in-between space often makes galleries uncomfortable, because it doesn’t fit an established sales formula.

I’ve been told directly by a gallery that there was “nothing interesting” about my work and that the composition was “amateur.” That judgment was made after reviewing five of my paintings—works created with intention, structure, and a technique developed over years. What happened next is the part galleries rarely like to hear.

I sent those same five paintings to a gallery in Alaska—and sold every single one of them, for a very good price.