The facts rarely, if ever, align with reports of growing gender equality in the art world. However, sales from Tuesday’s Untitled Art fair’s opening day show that 67% of the reported purchases were of pieces created by female artists.

The outcomes are not wholly unexpected. With its curatorial subject of “gender equality in the arts” and roughly 60% of exhibiting artists and 35% of gallery owners identifying as female or non-binary, this year’s fair took attempts to create a more inclusive platform.

Older ladies are getting their turn in the spotlight at a few galleries. Three female painters from various generations are on display at London dealer Niru Ratnam, including British painter Jacqueline Utley, who has just recently picked up her brush again after her children have grown up.

Regarding older female artists, Ratnam thinks there is “suspicion” among collectors: “They might not have had solo shows with other galleries; there’s no precedent, there’s no algorithm,” he says. “As gallerists, we also have to trust our eyes, so you really have to.” Ratnam had sold two of Utley’s paintings on the first day of the show (for between $2,000 and $6,00).

The Miami gallery Emerson Dorsch features a number of paintings by American painter Elisabeth Condon at its all-female booth. One of her pieces, a lattice piece, was inspired by the wallpaper in her childhood home; her paintings range in price from $2,000 to $40,000. Instead of repressing these themes in her paintings, Condon chose to embrace them, according to Tyler Emerson-Dorsch, co-owner of the gallery. The thing I adore most about women over 50 is their tendency to embrace who they are and not let anything change.

Victoria Miro Projects, an online initiative the London dealer started in January 2022 to present artists beyond the gallery’s roster, is making its physical debut. (Victoria Miro is also exhibiting in Miami Beach at Art Basel.) Emma Talbot, a British artist, is exhibiting two paintings on silk that are domestic in size and priced between £16,000 and £20,000 at Untitled. She is well-known for her expansive installations at the Venice Biennale, Whitechapel Gallery, and Frieze art exhibition. One of the paintings was sold on the opening day.

Talbot has been candid about how her job has been impacted by raising her children as a single mother when her spouse passed away in 2006. In an earlier this year online presentation, she brought up the subject, pointing out that certain artworks made references to “the fictional protective world or galaxy of two that a mother imagines for a newborn”. The two pieces, Nine Lives (2023) and Signs (2023), that are currently on display in Miami center around themes of protection, superstition, and magic.