JEN BRILL GREW UP on Manhattan's Upper East Side dreaming of one day becoming a painter. She studied at both Parsons School of Design and School ofVisual Arts. But at the ripe old age of 21, something clicked. "I can remember it hitting me: I am a bad artist," she says, her sneaky grin poking dirough her artfully disheveled darklocks. "But this wasn't a sad moment. It was a relief, and 1 could start a new path."

Brill, now 30, a photographers agent and Chanel ambassador, runs with a steady crew of movers and shakers. Artists like Dan Colen, Terence Koh, and Ryan McGinley have given Brill personal works; interior designer Rafael de Cardenas helped widi her Chinatown apartment; and her wardrobe is heaving with offerings from pals like Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCol-lough of Proenza Schouler, Chrissie Miller of Sophomore, and Christopher Kane.

"My downtown friends say I'm super uptown, but my uptown friends think I'm downtown," she says ofher personal style. "So, does that mean I'm a midtown girl?" Her fashion doesn't know a zip aide—or a decade. She mixes '80s stretch miniskirts, '20s vintage blouses, and '90s clogs, often topped off with a statement red lip and a Chanel handbag.

Brill began her career as a fashion publicist, but after a few years backstage, she wondered how she could apply her editorial savvy to the art world. Her first few projects of mixing the two came about organically for friends like Terry Richardson, Richard Kern, and McGinley. "Artists don't have publicists," says Brill. "Or at least they shouldn't. But there is an opportunity for those worlds to collide." Early this year, she started working at Total Management, which handles photographers like Terry Tsiolis, Max Earago, and Thomas Lagrange.

So does she have any regrets about putting down the brushes? "I have an eye for art but not for creating it," she reasons. A painterhas too solitary a life anyway. "This way, I am literally surrounded by the art and die people 1 love."Derek Blasberg