Vena Gallery & Studio

My wife and I visited this gallery and met the artist Vena. We loved his work and I fell in love with an original piece of his. Vena offered me a price for the artwork and we closed the deal. He packaged the artwork up professionally for me and off we went. Very enjoyable experience for both my wife and myself. We were able to spend some time there at his shop chatting about his perspective and practices regarding his art work. He is such a nice guy, very genuine and easy to talk with. I will visit Vena and his gallery again. I will be more than happy to purchase more of his work in the future. Thank you Vena!

THE WORST BUYING EXPERIENCE IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. COMPLETELY DISHONEST. UTTERLY LACKING OF INTEGRITY. SIMPLY AWFUL. DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH ...Our first impression of Veniamin Grebenshikov (aka Vena) is that he's a gifted and talented artist, and a nice guy. Oh, how I wish that had been true... but it isn't... THIS WAS THE WORST BUYING EXPERIENCE I'VE EVER HAD - FOR ANYTHING, FROM ANY VENDOR, EVER - IN MY ENTIRE LIFE.We were in New Orleans on vacation, and stopped in to Vena's studio. We liked his work, and ordered 3 Gyclee's - where the artist prints a picture of an original artwork on canvas using a fancy Epson art printer, and then hand-embellishes the print by painting over some parts with more paint.Our agreed-upon price was $2,000 for the 3 hand-embellished prints, which was a good discount from their asking price. He completed a Purchase Order that said "all sales are final", and took our 10% $200 deposit on my credit card.Vena owns the studio and is the artist. He negotiated the price himself, we looked each other in the eyes and shook hands to close the deal, he completed the bill of sale himself, and took our deposit himself.He said something to the effect of "this is a great deal for you; I have a new sales guy starting on Monday - don't discuss this with him because he gets 20% commission; only communicate with me on this", and said the paintings would be completed in a few weeks.He also asked us to email him some guidance on the colors for his hand-embellishments, which we did.A few weeks later he texted to say the prints were ready, and even sent a picture of him standing in front of his shop with our 3 completed prints.Then Vena went silent on me, and his new sales guy, Al, inserted himself into our deal and everything went south ...After receiving Vena's picture with our 3 finished prints (which I've attached here), I called the studio to pay the remaining balance. Al, his new sales guy, answered the phone. He said Vena wasn't around. When I inquired about our prints, he said Vena asked him to handle completing our deal.He also said "oops", he had sold one of our prints - and he sold it for more than the $2,000 we were paying Vena for all 3 prints, so we had a problem because Vena wasn't going to do a replacement at that price.To make a long story short, Al dragged things on for weeks, then finally told me "this was a really bad deal for us".He said they were "losing money" because we had agreed upon such a discount below asking price. He said he would give us a great deal though - if we would only pay an additional $1,600 more than we agreed to and the "ALL SALES ARE FINAL" legally binding Purchase Order specified.I reminded Al that their "cost" of these prints is some fancy printer ink, some fancy printer canvas, some paint, and some of the artist's time - maybe $150/each. They were still making good profit at $2,000 for 3 prints. He didn't care.I reminded that the Purchase Order was legally binding, and that they had taken my money in deposit. He didn't care.He tried to finesse the bait & switch, tried to be slick, tried to play passive-aggressive and blame it all on Vena, but in the end he said "if you don't pay us another $1,600 we're not going to ship the prints to you. You can have your deposit back, though".Gee... let me see... pay 80% more to a total scumbag who completely breaks his word and bond and violates a legally binding contract, or get my deposit back... Not a tough decision; I don't do business with scumbags, and this was total bullshit and completely dishonest. I guess I'll take my money back. I don't do business with people who go back on their word. I'm amazed - in this day and age where customers can post reviews all over the internet and the reviews never go away - that businesses make these kinds of decisions.I even gave Al and Vena one last chance to do the right thing and keep their word and their bond - I explained that if they didn't fulfill their legally binding contract, I would tell the truth about this experience on Yelp and every other review site I post on. They didn't care.Here's the best part - they didn't even refund my deposit. I had to dispute the transaction with my credit card company.Total scumbags. Completely devoid of integrity. Worst buying experience ever.Do not give these men your money...

My wife & I had exactly the opposite experience from the negative reviewer -- so much so that it makes me wonder if we went to the same place, We have bought two great original paintings by Vena, in 2010 and 2017. Jeff, the gallery manager both times, was great both times. The buying experience was interesting, informative and fun both times. Jeff even remembered us! Got reasonable prices, and art works were shipped as promised. Whatever, we'll be back! Love Vena. Love Jeff.