Issue link: https://artandculture.epubxp.com/i/885315
art&culture; 45 Among his collection are household names like Warhol, Picasso, Koons, and Haring, as well as newer works he finds interesting. Walsh keeps his eyes open for up-and-coming talent and is always willing to meet artists recommended by friends. "As a gallerist, emerging artists tend to come to you, and when I take someone on, I stand behind him or her 100 percent," he says. "You never know what an artist might become, and that makes each day so exciting." The quality he looks for is a fresh voice or per- spective that captivates. One person he is follow- ing at the moment is Brooklyn-based graffiti artist Christopher Florentino, better known as Flore. Flore's colorful canvases are covered with small notes with lettering and written messages that fill the work with energy and life as they appear to pop off the canvas. There is a surrealist element to many of the works in Walsh's collection, as seen in the nine iconic black-and-white Piero Fornasetti plates of the artist's muse, Italian soprano Lina Cavalieri. Artfully mounted together, each plate is centered in a black square frame, all within a larger frame. Beneath sits Le Cabinet Anthropomorphique (1982) by Salvador Dalí, a small bronze sculpture of a man whose body is made up of small drawers. "I've always loved the works of Dalí, Magritte, and other surrealist artists," says Walsh. In the same room are two framed ceramic plates by Picasso and a graphic text-based piece by controversial street artist Thierry Guetta, a.k.a. Mr. Brainwash, suspected by some to be an alter ego of the elu- sive Banksy. In Keep Creating (2011), the French- born, Los Angeles–based artist sets large white lettering against a black background to send a message: "Art cannot be criticized because every mistake is a new creation." A friend introduced Walsh to Slovakian art- ist Juro Kralik, who plays with illusion in Black & White (2015). Seen from the right side, the painting reveals the word "white" in large black letters em- bedded in a white background; from the left, the word becomes "black" in white letters on a black background. Nearby hangs a piece from Hunt Slonem's rabbit series he started in the 1980s: Regine's Black Diamond (2017). Slonem began us- ing rabbits as subject matter after learning that the year of his birth, 1951, was the Chinese year of the rabbit. And dominating one wall is Chuck Close's KAWS' COMPANION BLACK COLORWAY FIGURINE STANDS AMONG TWO FRAMED CERAMIC PLATES BY PICASSO AND CHUCK CLOSE'S SELF PORTRAIT IN SHADES OF GRAY.