This is how many artists do it. It may not be right for everyone, by I can attest the system works for me. In order to thrive you need good work, and someone other than your mother who thinks it's good work. Preferably more than one dealer. But the greatest of these is good work.
Quality is always in style.
Whether the work is realistic, abstract or whatever, it ought to exude your feelings, your facility and your originality. Of course, it's always possible to do something with less than good stuff, but to really stay in the game the work needs to be of high quality fairly consistently. And it has to keep coming. If you want to be an apple-vendor you need apples in your apple cart. It's productive artists that dealers can build and be confident with.