Four Year-Old Aelita Andre Opens Solo Exhibition At New York's Agora Gallery (VIDEO)

A little girl made a big splash in the New York art world this week.

Four year-old Aelita Andre, of Australia, opened her first solo exhibition at the Agora gallery in Chelsea, but she's already sold some of her paintings for more than $30,000 on the side, according to NBC News.

"I saw great colors, great movement, great composition and very playful, and I thought, 'This is fantastic,'" Agora gallery director Anglea Di Bello told NBC. "Who is this person? Only to find out, she's a child."

Di Bello even goes as far to tell The Telegraph that tiny Aelita's work is "abstract expressionism" and also "surrealist".

Aelita started painting before she was two years old. Michael Andre, the girl's father, said that at as early as nine-months, Aelita would crawl onto her parents' canvasses (both are artists) and begin to paint.

Aelita "often incorporates bark, twigs, children’s toys, bird feathers, and other found objects into her paintings, lending depth and texture to the overall effect. " according to The Agora Gallery's website. (see photos of the paintings here). Three paintings have already been sold for $27,000.

The precocious painter seems to relish the spotlight and on a recent trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with her family, amid works by Picasso and Monet, asked her parents "Where are my paintings?', according to NBC.

"The Prodigy of Color" will show at the Agora Gallery until the end of June.

View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.

And check out this eagle Aelita painted before she was two years-old:

Aelita Andre painting "Eagle" from Michael Andre on Vimeo.

Comments

[IbrahimSapien]

05:45 PM on 06/21/2011

Give any 6 month old a square of canvas and some bottles of ketchup and blue berry jam to play with. Make your own 30,000 dollar work of art. Or throw some grain on a canvas to entice a flock of pigeons for a few hours. Your own original Jackson Pollock.

This doesn't say as much about the skill of this child as it does for the ridiculousness of what's called "art" these days.

[livesimply]

04:17 AM on 06/17/2011

Art is a reflection of life. Interpret it however your interpretation has been interpreted by your experience, choices, ideals, or whatever. If you can't relate, it's OK. I hope she continues to love painting and learns the techniques, history, (and most importantly) the language of art.

[artsology]

11:22 PM on 06/11/2011

Agora Gallery is a "vanity" gallery, meaning that if you can pay to essentially rent the space, you can have a show there. Therefore, this 4 year old's work is there not based on the merit of her artistic vision, but rather her parents' ability to pay to get her paintings on the wall.

A similar story came up 4 years ago, "Picasso or Pretender," about a 4 year old taking the "NY art world by storm." Here's a refresher: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3693869&page=1

Same story, just repackaged a few years later after most people have forgotten the previous story.

[hushcolours]

11:30 AM on 06/10/2011

Well, not everyone who buys art knows about art.
But what's important here is that the child is having fun.
The rest doesn't matter.

[SumboDeSpeshal]

07:11 AM on 06/10/2011

What a bunch of tripe!
What I saw here was any preschooler's finger painting class with the exception of having a canvas prepped in Cadmium Red by mommy or daddy.
If her paintings sell for upwards of 30,000 dollars then mine should be selling for a half million.

Poor girl just wants to be a kid while her parents are exploiting her innocence.

[terryward]

01:55 PM on 06/09/2011

i'm surprised huffpo seemingly didn't research this further.

agora gallery is well known among 'real' artists as a vanity gallery: seemingly pretty much always, you pay your way in.

it is my understanding that if you wanted to curate a 'solo' art exhibit at this new york city 'gallery' for your cat, you could get if it the price is right.

--terry ward
(artist/art writer. GrumpyVisualArtist.BlogSpot.com )

[jetle25]

10:46 AM on 06/09/2011

this is why I stopped going to Chelsea a while back

[Coolidge Smith]

01:19 AM on 06/09/2011

She clearly has no idea what the hell she's doing.

[NikkiNY12]

09:39 AM on 06/09/2011

Puahahahahahaha I really LOL'd....*faved*

[kvolovesart]

06:25 PM on 06/08/2011

People are such stooges when it comes to "high art.". I know real artists that have actual talent and are lucky to sell a piece for 100.00 bucks...this is ridiculous...rich people will buy anything...her parents are exploiting her...there is a great documentary...I cannot remember the name...about another four year old that was painting and selling her work in the thousands...turned out her dad was a failed artist and he was "embellishing" her work...wonder...

[emmeaki]

04:40 PM on 06/08/2011

Like any 4-year-old couldn't do that!

[aurora59]

06:30 PM on 06/07/2011

There's something surreal here all right, but it's not the paintings.

You'll notice that the article reads that some of the paintings were, "sold on the side" and, "according tot the Agora Gallery's website", in reference to how much the works sold for. Why didn't NBC interview an actual buyer of one of those fabulous works?

This gallery owner is unscrupulo­us and the parents are obviously undiscover­ed "artist' types attempting to live vicariousl­y through their child. They should be thinking less about themselves and how much publicity they can generate and more about what their selfishnes­s is going to do to her when the bottom falls out. Do you imagine they've even once stopped to consider how crushed she's going to be, the day of her opening, when the New York art world doesn't receive her as the prodigy they have made her out to be? I shudder when I imagine the thinly veiled snickering and the far less than kind commentary coming from that crowd.

I wonder, is it legal to serve wine at an art opening when the artist is is only four? Just asking.

[Fortune27]

05:14 PM on 06/08/2011

...or on the other side of the argument: The little girl clearly enjoys the process of making her art. I'd like to assume that her parents will continue to foster her interests and let her skills unfold as they will. Though it would behoove them make sure that she understands the messy part of being an artist so that she will have a realistic understanding of what to expect of the artistic life.

[flossophy]

06:28 PM on 06/07/2011

Her parents aren't artists... they are capitalists.

[Arts4u]

06:29 PM on 06/07/2011

Opportunists.

They should be ashamed of themselves.

[brownfrown]

09:25 AM on 06/08/2011

If someone paid me for my poops, I'd be sure to can every single one.

[Ourrias]

06:21 PM on 06/07/2011

The only "prodigious" ones here are her parents. Their hyping of their daughter's paintings would put most professional PR firms to shame.

[dbsherri]

06:16 PM on 06/07/2011

I only have one question. Is her dad related to Spock?
And I only have one statement. Prodigy? Give any child a room full of paint, canvases and no bounderies (not a bad thing, I'm just saying...) and even you can make $30,000....tell someone what something is worth and they'll pay it. Let them decide for themselves...not so much

[BannedInBoston]

06:16 PM on 06/07/2011

I watched the video. She's not just just a kid messing around with paint. She looks like she has a good sense of the effect she's after. If you think people are kidding themselves about her talent, you need to take a course in art history. It's fine not to like abstract expressionism as a style (I don't either, frankly) but it's much, much more than someone like Jackson Pollack just throwing paint around....

[Arts4u]

07:04 PM on 06/07/2011

You obviously have not spent any amount of time with 4-year olds finger painting. They all paint like this.

[sho-nuff]

11:16 AM on 06/08/2011

believe it or not children can concentrate when they're 4...