Cultural Engagement Through Art at Susan Eley Fine Art

Eley went on to earn an MA in Visual Arts Administration from New York University where she learned the importance of networking and collaboration. “I think it’s difficult to be a women-run business. I joined a non-profit, The Association of Women Art Dealers (AWAD). We need each other.” 

In addition, her experience as a culture writer for several publications, her work in public relations and education at the Morgan Library & Museum and for the Mayor's Art Commission of the City of New York, and her internship at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy all contributed to the vision she brings to her art dealership. 

Eley’s parents also played an early and influential role. “As a child, I was surrounded by art. My mother is the sculptor, Carole Eisner. She is 86 and still productive. I’m also organized, like my father."

Currently, SEFA operates two galleries— on the Lower East Side in NYC and in Hudson in Upstate New York. COVID was a catalyst for SEFA Hudson. In the summer of 2020, Eley opened it as a “pandemic pop-up.”

“I always wanted a street front gallery. I knew Hudson well and loved it. I was still on West 90th Street when I found this space.” Soon after its opening, this satellite space became a principal gallery within the Hudson Valley art scene— integral in expanding local Upstate art communities and welcoming visitors to what is becoming a burgeoning arts region. Eley remarked, “It has been labeled the Brooklyn of Upstate New York.”

In a bold move, in 2022, only two years after opening in Hudson, Eley opened her space on Orchard Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The adrenalin rush that spiked an interest among first time buyers of art during COVID was now over. Eley had launched an ambitious program in both locations, organizing solo and group exhibitions created by a diverse body of artists from the U.S., Latin America, Asia, and Europe every six weeks. 

Art fairs have also played a valuable role in marketing her artists' work. “I attended my first fair in 2007. I’ve attended dozens since. They were all well attended. They are super important. Art fairs are the gift that keeps on giving.” 

In the two years since running two galleries at separate locations, Eley has decided to adjust her work-life balance and will not renew her lease on the Lower East Side location. “It’s been complicated to run two spaces. My business is year-round. I’ll now be able to concentrate my energy and do longer shows, and bring in guest curators.”

Two large, street-facing windows on either side of an impressive brick archway mark the presence of SEFA on Warren Street in Hudson. Eley’s exhibition program focuses on contemporary art by emerging and mid-career artists who work in a range of media— painting, printmaking, sculpture, and photography.

“Although 75% of our artists are women, I did not set out to do that.” Known as “Susie” to her staff, Eley encourages an informal, relaxed approach between herself, her artists, and her clients. She goes on to explain that she has hired an all-female staff as “they are less ego driven. Women are team players.” 

She also speaks about her childhood connection to the abstract expressionist painter James Moore (1938-2013), who she has featured in two posthumous exhibitions, the most recent in August 2024, titled Something Beautiful Happened. 

“I first became aware of James’ paintings as a teenager. As schoolgirls do, I spent every waking moment with my childhood best friend, Robbyn. Jim, as we called him, was a kind and caring stepfather to Robbyn and her sister, Jill. 

Their apartment’s walls were lined with Jim’s bold, acrylic paintings on canvas, rich with saturated color and organic forms. That art-filled home must have impacted me in ways I didn’t know then. I always relished the moments sitting in the living room under the artwork, trading stories and laughing.” 

In addition to regular exhibitions, SEFA has hosted artist talks, political fundraisers, literary and poetry salons, and panel discussions. Susan Eley plans to continue this rigorous practice of community cultural engagement in her Hudson, NY gallery in the coming months.