When looking at art one considers line, shape, volume, the play of light across pigment. When looking at Los Angeles, one considers other lines. The stark divide between the haves and have-nots is as tangible as the freeways that divide one neighborhood from another. With the theatrical performance of big money that makes LA more destination than home, the art world can seem like just another playground for more self-conscious daydreams of the city. On opening nights and art walks the crackling eccentricity at each gallery nourishes candid frisson, but it still needs to perform in its own way. The show must go on.

Pulling back the curtain are Veronica Fernandez and Nancy Gamboa. As art advisors they act as confidantes, guiding would-be buyers through the gallerists, it-girls, and opinion leaders that determine what and how art is valuable. Fernandez established LA-based Fine Art Advising in 2006 after seeing how easily people trusted dealers. Emailing me from her remote office, Fernandez explains “I saw too many people who continually spent in the six-figure range… but lacked the eye, education and research skills to make informed decisions. I mainly witnessed buyers make poor choices in relation to quality, and I felt passionate about coming at it from another angle, from a more objective point of view.”

How can a collector know where to begin in our sprawling city of Westside professionals stalking sticky Eastside outposts? Firsthand knowledge and personal relationships are Fernandez and Gamboa’s remedy, grounding art collections in the local texture of Los Angeles, all pre-vetted of course. Fernandez notes that “the majority of the time, we’ll have a closer relationship with the gallery than the collector does. Our pre-existing relationships help in reassuring the client that they’re being treated fairly.” Their neighborhood ethos counters the frenzied art market. 

Fernandez remarks that, “after 10 years of advising, I’ve become critical to an almost ridiculous degree. I’ve traveled so much, seen so much work, so many trends, attended so many fairs, I’m not easily impressed. It makes it all the more rewarding when I’m truly blown away by a work of art; it’s something that I really pay attention to.” Her taste, honed by dogged attendance to all the art-hype events of the past decade and peppered with some good old-fashioned research, allows Fernandez  to operate intuitively. “I spend much of my time online, or on the road, in research libraries. My strengths are knowing which bodies of works to pursue, which periods I believe are undervalued, knowing an A example from a B example.”

Crafting an art collection with a narrative, a purpose even, necessitates the cultivated eye and social micro-economy of the art advisor. Like  personal art-world trainers, part frenemy and part teacher, they are counted on to give it to you straight. Nancy Gamboa, whom Fernandez describes as “very tough—in all the right ways,” explains that she’s “not looking for the fad of the moment, there are others that do a great job of that. What I’m looking for are visionary artists and superb artworks that will stand the test of time. That search starts in the studio, getting to know the artist and their work.”