Residential · Art Advisory · Commission · Original Works

Casual Luxe | Alison Trail, Mokena

The best client relationships begin not with a brief but with a genuine response to the work itself. This one started when the family saw a figurative painting I had done over a fireplace in another home, fell in love with it, and commissioned something very similar for the library and sitting room of their own. That painting became the anchor of the space and the beginning of a longer conversation about their collection.

After the commission was placed, they came to my studio. During that visit they purchased a second painting, a bright and optimistic abstract that brought a completely different energy from the fireplace commission. Two works, two registers, both distinctly mine. From that foundation I began curating other artists to expand the collection around them.

The collection grew to include a figurative mixed media work on paper by German artist Ute Rathmann, whose layered and expressive approach to the figure brings both weight and sensitivity to a space. And a large-scale commissioned painting by Kathleen Eaton, a luminous, stylized Chicago-scape that gives a family living outside the city a connection to it that feels personal rather than decorative. For a household of thirteen, a home that large needs art that can hold its own across generous spaces without losing intimacy. Every work here does that.

The collection reflects how art advisory works at its best. Not imposed on a space from the outside, but grown from a genuine relationship between the clients, the art, and the artist at the center of it all.

Developed in collaboration with Epic Interiors. Photography: Cynthia Lynn Photography.