jdc Fine Art : Contemporary Art Gallery and Fine Art Dealer celebrates 10 years in business. jdc Fine Art was established in 2011 and has remained dedicated to contemporary art with a sense of consciousness. “These are not only beautiful artworks they are thoughtful ones. They champion expanded perspective and evoke palpable emotion as they address contemporary issues. These are the merits by which we have weighed the value of the work we present and the artists we represent,” says Gallery Director, Jennifer DeCarlo.
Many of the Artists we represent have been in our orbit since before the gallery was established. Mutual respect and camaraderie grew into allegiance. Belief in the work of a core group of artists was the impetus for DeCarlo to become a dealer. Contemporaries-by-generation, like Jennifer Greenburg, Constanza Piaggio, Guillermo Srodek-Hart, and later Matt Eich provided the gallery with connections and encouragement. Other more established Artists like Tatiana Parcero and Ian van Coller supported the gallery platform. DeCarlo opened her own gallery in a modest second-story suite in San Diego’s Little Italy, Art and Design District in spring of 2011 and by the fall of that year was hosting seasonal exhibitions, participating in regional art fairs, attending portfolio reviews, and being invited to contribute works to museum benefit auctions. DeCarlo, who had worked in a prominent Chicago gallery, wrote for AIPAD, and studied in the Midwest (earning an MFA from UW-Madison and BA from Knox College) prior to opening the Gallery maintains connections to Chicago and San Diego, cities also home to many of the gallery’s artists.
DeCarlo, working within the framework of shifting circumstance, has kept the gallery plastic through the years. DeCarlo has expanded, contracted, moved, and reinvented jdc Fine Art due to relocation-demands. These location changes (San Diego, CA; Chicago, IL; now Gleneden Beach, OR) have been challenging to respond to, indeed, but allowed for experimentation, expanded both our connectivity and reach, and ultimately sure-proofed our resilience. “Each move is a new opportunity for transference. Ideas, histories, emotions, philosophies of place and people have commonality, yet wide variation. Each place we have anchored has given us a different perspective and allowed the work of Artists we have encountered along the way to reach new audiences and vice-versa,” DeCarlo remarks.
With time, we have grown our circle and encountered new visual voices through various avenues, professional invitations, and collaborations. In our early years, we discovered Jennifer B. Thoreson jurying PhotoLucida’s Critical Mass, and Bear Kirkpatrick while a reviewer at PhotoNOLA. In more recent years we have encountered the work of Justyna Badach at San Diego’s Medium Festival of Photography, and have promoted work of Paul Turounet, who we came to know by living and working in San Diego arts community. We recently began offering work by Thomas Kellner, who we have stayed in touch with since early Chicago days. We were an early exhibitor of Jess T. Dugan’s work, supporter of Scott B. Davis, and introduced Paul Cava’s work to the West Coast for the first time. We help Patrons follow major news and developing projects by some previously exhibited artists. These include Chicago-based Ursula Sokolowska, Philadelphia-based Nadine Rovner, and Boston-based Tara Sellios whose works continue to thrive and interest us. A 2020-21 online exhibition You and Yours was a +1 exercise in connectivity in a moment of isolation that played on old connections as it sought new ones. It revealed an unknown circle of contact and harmonized with the idea of viral-spread. In You and Yours represented and previously exhibited artists invited a colleague for inclusion in an online group show. We aim to cultivate relationships this exhibition created.
As we move into the next decade, we pause in gratitude. To our artists, collectors, patrons, friends, and colleagues: we are because you are. Thank you for the confidence and support you extend. The greatest pleasure in facilitating public forum for experiencing contemporary art is sharing the work with each of you. Special thanks to our colleagues in the press, specifically the Writers and Editors of Photograph and Black & White Magazine who gave early and ongoing editorial attention to the gallery and our artists. You help foster our discovery and validate our work.
With hindsight, we recognize our most significant relationships would not exist were it not for the wind shifting the direction of our course. jdc Fine Art is now located on the Oregon Coast. We keep true to the nature of currents that have brought us to this shore- endurance through flexibility and growth through change. With foresight we settle into a Pacific Northwest chapter as we scan a future that surrounds us. We keep our eyes open for ripples along the horizon rather than chart a hard-course towards a fixed point, and stay true to the only constant we may control: our philosophy. As we rededicate ourselves, we acknowledge the power of this moment with an exhibition, Time in two directions. Planned for this fall, the exhibition will celebrate our past, feature recent discoveries, and foreshadow new directions of intention.