ABOUT THE FOUNDER

Born and raised in New York City, ABXY founder Allison Barker fell in love with art at an early age. She graduated from the Nightingale-Bamford School in 2006 and attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, where she earned degrees in Art History and French Literature.

Barker went on to pursue a career in curatorial work, independently developing exhibitions for museums, galleries, and contemporary artists throughout the US and Europe, while contributing to publications such as Art Republik and Whitewall Magazine. She has reported on topics ranging from Art Basel to art in outer space and interviewed contemporary icons like Rob Pruitt and Daniel Arsham.

As she cultivated lifelong relationships with international artists, collectors, and art professionals, Barker began consulting on acquisitions for the collections of friends and family. With an eye for new talent, in 2015 she founded ABXY (an acronym for Allison Barker x You), transforming her SoHo home-office into a working artists’ studio and salon style gallery.

In 2017, Barker opened a brick-and-mortar gallery in Manhattan’s historic Lower East Side. For the next four years, she curated a ground-breaking program of exhibitions by emerging and mid-career artists with a focus on contemporary American social issues.

In 2021, Barker converted the gallery into an art advisory, establishing ABXY Private Client.