8 Standout Artists to Watch from Felix Art Fair in L.A.
On view from February 15 to 19 at the famous Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the fair presented 65 galleries from around the world
BY PAUL LASTER
FEBRUARY 20, 2023
Overflowing with collectors anxiously trying to secure the best works in the shortest amount of time, the fifth edition of Felix Art Fair was proclaimed an outstanding success within the first few hours of its opening on February 15.
Founded in 2019 by art collector Dean Valentine and gallerist brothers Al Morán and Mills Morán with the goal of creating a fair experience that prioritizes connoisseurship, collaboration, and community among collectors, dealers, and artists, Felix LA has been a hit from the start.
On view February 15-19 at the famous Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the fair presented 65 galleries from around the world in the pool cabanas of the hotel and in the more expansive rooms on the 11th and 12th floors above.
“I made every phone I could to get the sun out this week,” Mills Moran told Galerie. “I called in every favor from everyone I knew. In the five years of the fair, there was never a day so nice. You could tell by the buzz around the pool and the galleries were all crowded. This year finally felt like we were back to normal.”
Adams and Ollman sold 20 pieces in the first three hours and continued to make significant sales every day of the fair. See the fair highlights below and the artist to keep on your art collecting radar.
4. Anne Buckwalter at Rachel Uffner
Inspired by folk art traditions of the Pennsylvania Dutch country, where she spent her childhood, Anne Buckwalter makes similarly flattened depictions of domestic interiors and pointed arrangements of personal objects in her realistic paintings and works on paper. Mixing hex signs, quilt patterns and homegrown crafts with nudes reflected in mirrors and captured on artworks displayed on the walls or seen on a screen, Buckwalter adds an erotic edge to her otherwise decorative environments. In her 2022 Four Rockers painting (one of several paintings and works on paper at Rachel Uffner), the Portland, Maine-based artist cunningly captured a game of spin the bottle, which innocently took place at the center of four rocking chairs but now seems to have turned into a rousing orgy, as seen through the windowed door that voyeuristically leads us into the next room.
