“It was just crazy enough to work,” said Sea Grandon, owner and curator of Atelier, on her plan to open an art gallery in downtown Warsaw, Indiana. In March of 2023, Grandon made her wildest dreams come true when she opened Atelier.

Grandon began her professional career, not in art, but in patent law. Married to a lawyer and practicing in New York City, Grandon began collecting art. From collecting art for herself, she moved on to collecting art for other people, and her clientele grew to many cities across the country. Now, Sea Grandon’s artistic passions have led her to become a gallery owner.

After living in Boston, Lexington, Kentucky, New York City and Chicago, Grandon and her family moved to Warsaw for her husband’s work in orthopedics. She had never lived in Indiana, much less a small city like Warsaw. Grandon said, “Over time, I have realized that the ease of lifestyle here frees up and increases my creative bandwidth.  Further, any deficiency or drawback to small town living is actually an exciting entrepreneurial opportunity.”

Currently, “Secretos y Stone” is on display at Atelier. Two separate artists are featured in this exhibition: a sculptor named Adam Boyle, and a painter named Reynier Garcia. The two different mediums play off each other and highlight the themes of one another. Garcia paints various scenes from what Grandon calls a “dream-like state” with a blue sky and desert landscape. Some of the “Secretos” feature a tumbleweed-type plant, a small black dog and even a knife. Grandon numbered and ordered each painting, hanging them in her “big, blank, white box” of a gallery space in an order based on her own intuition. Adam Boyle, a Columbia City resident and sculptor of “Stone” began his career in orthopedics engineering in the area, honing his mathematical prowess. The same mathematical concepts are manifested in the carved stone sculptures. Each sculpture is a mathematical concept that comes to life. In his sculpture “Phi,” Boyle uses the golden ratio to form a mobius loop out of pink alabaster and Indiana limestone.

The two collections of art that make up the gallery’s first dual exhibit complement each other and balance each other out quite nicely.

Grandon herself has a balance of logic and imagination. The lawyer side of her brain connects to the mathematical execution of Boyle’s art, while her aesthetic eye can find the beauty in surrealism such as Garcia’s “Secretos.” “The two bodies of work may seem very disparate,” ATELIER Director Sea Grandon said, “but I saw a common visual language that I wanted to explore in this exhibit. There are commonalities in terms of color and form between both bodies of work, and I wanted to see what dialogue emerged when the works were placed in proximity to each other. I love the interplay between Garcia’s imagined landscapes and Boyle’s mathematically precise sculptures. The surreal and the real–the soul and the mind–beautiful dualities.”

Grandon knows what to look for in art. There are three criteria that she evaluates. The first of which is beauty. “And I don’t just mean pretty. There are all types of beauty. There is sexual beauty. There’s the kind where you can’t look away.” The next is intellectual value. Political, historical or community values make a piece stand out. Her final standard is “virtuosity – technical skill, and artistry,” she says. She takes three to four months to conceptualize the collections. She had tried pairing many other artists together before waking up one morning with the answers. Each exhibition is planned nearly a year in advance. The preparation, contemplation, planning and care is so clear in Atelier’s newest collection, “Secretos y Stone.”

Tucked into the quiet Indiana town of Warsaw, this gallery is making waves worldwide.

“Secretos y Stone” can be seen at the gallery through August 9. Between August 9 and Labor Day, it is viewable by appointment.

Secretos y Stone: Open 11 am to 4 pm, Mondays through Thursdays and 11 am to 8 om Fridays and Saturdays. 104 E. Center Street, Warsaw, 312.218.7316, seagrandon.com