FEIN Collections [made in new york city] is a contemporary gallery based in Bruton located within Somerset county, England. The Gallery Director, Danielle Fein, is a renaissance woman with a background in screenwriting, classical ballet, art history, and law. Danielle has been collecting art since her early twenties before becoming a dedicated gallerist. At a little under 1,000 sq. ft. containing an office and two gallery rooms, FEIN Collections currently focuses on seven artists who were carefully selected over the years. The represented artists include Miles Critchley-Hope from Somerset, David Hansen based in Los Angeles, Irene Hoff, a Dutch artist living in Bali, Indonesia, Sheeba Khan, an Indian artist living in Dubai, John Klukas from Minnesota, who also splits his time between Bangkok and New York, Gareth Lloyd from the United Kingdom, and Sue C. Waller from the United States.
With an international focus ranging from photography, assemblage, collage, painting, and mixed media, FEIN Collections chose their stable of artists because of Danielle Fein’s study over the years of each artist's methods, conceptual impact, and societal relevance. She refers to specific types of venues as the ‘White Cube galleries’, in such a regard, Danielle is referencing the difficulty of navigating artworks and minimal information provided about the artist to the public. These ‘high galleries’, which she refers to them as, are highly impersonal as she describes. Danielle’s gallery model offers the collector, client, and art enthusiast at FEIN collections [made in new york city] an avenue thorough biographical narrative pertaining to the artists’ vision and background. Ranging from commission to direct sales in the gallery, the collectors and clients of FEIN collections are diverse and come from all over the world. Danielle describes her clientele as just as passionate about the art at the gallery as she is and provides them with “life-long-loved acquisitions”.
Gallery Director Danielle Fein has a complex background. She studied classical ballet since the age of three up until her 20s and became part of a ballet company in New York. Her educational CV is extensive as she began as a pre-med student then evolved into art history and literature at Columbia University, then she studied law at Yeshiva University in New York. When Danielle became an attorney, she specialized in the practice of Holocaust Claims Restitution and Reparations. She worked on notable cases such as an over-25 year long litigation against SNCF rail transportation over their transport of victims to concentration camps during World War II. Finally, Danielle completed an MA in Art Business at Sotheby's Institute London.
As a writer, Danielle edited and contributed to Professor Peter Goodrich’s Legal Emblems and the Art of Law: Obiter Depicta as the Vision of Governance (Cambridge University Press). She has done research for films and assisted in the writing of screenplays. Besides ballet in her youth, Danielle also grew up participating in tennis tournaments and studied classical piano. FEIN Collections [made in new york city] was first envisioned by Daniel in her twenties when she first started collecting.
The themes contained in the works represented by FEIN Collections range from ecology, Greek myths, magical realism based in imagination, childhood, and enchantments as well as connotations of redemption. Artists within the FEIN Collections such as Gareth Lloyd focus on iconography based in photography, assemblage, and photographic collage. His varied methods and presentations imbue artworks by infusing apparitional notions of interiors, landscapes, cityscapes and sometimes combine such ghostly characteristics and references from pop culture. Sue Waller offers cinematic photography which resembles post-apocalyptic realms and dream-like sequences of vivid distortion. Her imaginative works reveal how photography can be used beyond methods of documentation and modeling. David Hansen creates drawings and paintings which range from mania to despair. His abstract landscapes and biological-like forms elicit sensory impulses based on a variety of emotions. The painting assemblages of artist Irene Hoff are based on portraiture narrative with the notion of conveying visual stimulation as energy. Her works are often colorful and contain a mystique based in magical realism. John Klukus creates rich erotic photography based on high contrast and theatrical production values. With incorporation of figures by including iconography such as portions of dark bird wings, he creates a contemporary mythology based in sensuality, drama, and ominous foreshadowing. Sheeba Khan is one of the newest represented artists by FEIN collections and is an abstract expressionist who offers a variety in compositional composure. Her works range from containing drips, smears, and scrapes giving the paintings a very urban appeal and aesthetic. And finally, Miles Critchley-Hope creates digitally-enhanced photography which seem like otherworldly dimensions. With angular distortion and a metallic sheen to the surface, his art often appears futuristic and contains fantastical elements of mystery and wonder.
The location of FEIN Collections in Bruton, Somerset - England was specifically chosen for the appealing countryside to raise a family for Danielle as opposed to the urban life of London where she previously resided with her husband, Carl. Known for breathtaking landscapes (particularly in the Levels) and traditions based in farming quality foods as well as a rich archeological heritage, Somerset provides a pleasant environment for a contemporary gallery steeped in promoting the narrative and historical value of artists, such as the focus of FEIN Collections.
Danielle Fein as Gallery Director of FEIN Collections [made in new york city] is an ambitious individual who has set her sights on perhaps opening additional locations for her gallery in maybe New York, London, or Paris. As a curator, she is focused on promoting her artists into the annals of contemporary art historical canon. She describes Bruton, United Kingdom as an artistic hub and her intention is to build upon this location to become an international destination for art tourism. With high ceilings and a local wine shop attached to the same building as the gallery along with a dynamic array of inspiring contemporary artists, FEIN Collections [made in new york city] offers a celebrated venue for deeply relevant art which have conceptual purpose to interpret and express postmodern civilization.