Amy Purssey, Assistant Director of the Eli Klein Fine Arts Gallery, describes herself as an observant person and avid lover of art since her childhood in England. Equipped with perceptive arts insights, Purssey recounts a short anecdote about seeing a Matisse at the age of ten, walking out of the museum, and noticing the similarity of the surrounding foliage to those of his famous gouaches découpés. It turns out Matisse’s residence-in-museum had inspired those specific pieces. Since then, she has accepted a scholarship to intensively pursue sculpture and painting in which the pressure paradoxically pushed her away from art, started a degree in French and International Relations, completed a degree in the History of Art, and found a passion for Chinese contemporary art.

In part thanks to an arts collaboration with Damien Hirst, prominent English artist and collector, Purssey rediscovered her love for the arts world and was determined to find her place in gallery work. For a chance to work at a London museum, she walked to every arts street and personally handed out résumés. And, after studying Dali’s Lobster Telephone in a university lecture, and seeing the piece during her internship at Tate Modern Gallery, Purssey was especially certain a professional career in the arts world was well-suited for her. During a visit to her sister, a business in mandarin student, Purssey was captivated by the 798 district, a thriving art zone in Beijing. The rapid growth in Chinese art was particularly exciting and spurred Purssey’s research at the Eli Klein Fine Arts Gallery, which specializes in Chinese contemporary art. Today, she works on a range of tasks for the gallery from curating the show to planning social media outreach. Although relatively new to New York City, Purssey is interested in participating more in the wide range of arts available, as well as learning Mandarin to eventually communicate with the gallery’s mainland artists directly.

LISA: What does art mean to you?

AMY: To me, art means anything that speaks for itself. One person can look at a piece, and they don’t get it, whereas another person can look at it and feel an intense emotion. When I personally look at a work and feel something that I can’t even put into words, that’s when I know it’s a great piece. With some of the artists at Eli Klein, I get that gasp of wow. When I have no clue as to how an artist has done what they’ve done –especially because I have done art myself– that is art.

LISA: Are there any limitations to what you consider to be art?

AMY: Art is in the eye of the beholder, so it’s very much a matter of opinion. For example, Damien Hirst did a piece on twins and his whole concept was for my twin sister and I to sit in front of a blank canvas where above us were two squares of dots. I remember thinking, “You didn’t create me. You created the concept, but you didn’t create me. So, am I effectively art or what is this?” For something like that, where he didn’t create me, that’s not art. But people say it is. That’s the thing. Art is always pushing boundaries. I think today anything you call art can be art, which is an interesting concept actually.

LISA: Following that idea, does mundane art, pictures that people take each day and slap a filter on, devalue professional art?

AMY: Well, I work at a commercial gallery so everything you see here is for sale. When you’re looking at a piece, you’re also looking at what the piece is priced at. However, I do believe that what the piece is priced at should not define whether it’s successful not. Although, on a material level, it still does. I went to a Sotheby’s auction a few weeks ago and saw a very unremarkable piece going for two hundred thousand dollars. Essentially, I was looking at a plain board painted black and I thought, “How is that art?” But it sold. So, again, art is a matter of opinion. It’s the kind of thing where people either love it or hate it. That’s how art is always going to be.

LISA: What do you think affects creativity?

AMY: I think there’s a shock and awe factor. The pursuit of doing something revolutionary and something that hasn’t been done before is a powerful motivation. It’s interesting to see how far people will go to stretch the boundaries of what is art. I think nowadays, you have to redefine the word art.

Also, as an artist, you can’t avoid your society because that’s where you draw your inspiration from. For example, there’s an exhibition coming up about Hurricane Sandy, and that’s a clear example of being affected by your environment.

LISA: Where do you see the aspect of art you work in heading?

AMY: In ten years, I can really see Chinese contemporary art making a significant change to how we know it now in the West. People are going to be so much more aware of Chinese contemporary art. It’s only since the 90s that they have stood alone, separate from immediate comparison to western art, as stable collected pieces. Whereas once everyone wanted standard western artists, now there’s a booming recognition of Chinese art. I’m curious to see where the popularity stands in the future. Ultimately, the sky’s the limit. There aren’t too many limitations; it’s just a matter of watching the state of things.

LISA: What’s something in art today that excites you? And, conversely, frustrates you?

AMY: What frustrates me is peoples’ naivety towards some works and some artists. I’ve found, from speaking to westerners about their opinions of Chinese contemporary art, that there are some pieces where people automatically think, “That looks a little bit corrupt.” However, in actual fact, the art has nothing to do with that. They’re falsely led to believe the art represents those cultural misconceptions. What strikes me is how some well-known artists are playing more with the concept of art than actually physically doing the work. As well as how well a name sells as opposed to a stunning piece. Avid collectors generally have a style they love to collect, which inevitably leads to collecting a name. Personally, I hope I don’t ever become that. There’s always so much more to explore. You’ve always got to look at the bigger picture and never be narrow-minded with anything that has to do with art. I always look at a piece and question what it says to me and what it says for itself. There shouldn’t be someone explaining the concept to you.

Many thanks to Amy Purssey and the Eli Klein Fine Arts Gallery for offering their time and experience for this interview.