Dallas Art Fair 2024 — Your Exclusive Visual Preview

Ahead of the 2024 Dallas Art Fair, which takes place from April 4 to April 7, PaperCity tapped a stable of art world heavy hitters to weigh in on this year’s must-see works and the Texas fair’s incredible influence. 

Adam Green, founder of Adam Green Art Advisory

The number of art fairs across the country has increased significantly, but those that remain relevant are not as often found. The Dallas Art Fair continues to be an incredible fair for those local to the area, as well as to the international art community. Important galleries from around the world visit Dallas seeking to reconnect with existing Texas collectors and engage with new ones.

For those of us who do not live in New York or Los Angeles, having this kind of quality time to invite gallerists into your home for collection visits, or to go out to dinner to get to know them better, is incredibly rare and valuable.

The art world is a relationship-driven business, and ultimately having high-touch moments of face time with top gallerists and artists who come out for the fair will strengthen your relationships. This could put you top of mind when those galleries decide who is getting access to highly desirable, in-demand artworks.

Collectors from other cities often lament about the difficulty in getting galleries’ attention. I encourage everyone to take advantage of this opportunity by making sure you attend the fair, get to know the galleries visiting Dallas, and hopefully buy something to show your support.

As I think about all of the amazing galleries and artists set to show at this year’s Dallas Art Fair, I start to make itineraries for myself and my clients to be sure we cover enough ground. During these fairs, one of my main tasks as an art advisor is to walk my clients through the fair helping them filter down the art world and focus on investment quality art that also resonates with their tastes, preferences, and goals for their collections.

Adam Green’s Favorite Artworks at the Dallas Art Fair in 2024:

Madeleine Bialke at Alexander Berggruen: Bialke is an exciting rising artist best known for her vibrant landscapes that emit glowing colors. She often minimizes the level of detail in her works, revealing her to be an artist focused just as much on color as landscape.

Nadia Waheed at Nicodim Gallery: Waheed’s paintings explore themes of womanhood and cultural trauma, often using allegory and autobiographical elements. The paintings are powerful and incredibly well executed. While Waheed has had solo exhibitions the past few years in Los Angeles, London, and New York, she is based in Austin.

Sam Mattax at Fredericks & Freiser: Fredericks & Freiser is well known for representing figurative artists, however Mattax is a new face to the program, a recent graduate of Hunter College, New York. His large-scale paintings are webs of systematic chaos, dense mazes of impatient marks and smudged movement. Don’t miss the large diptych. Benny’s Place, in their booth.

Geoff Green, collector, on Behalf of himself and his wife, Sheryl Adkins-Green, on Their 2024 Must Sees:

Babajide Olatunji at TAFETA: All it takes is one look to be completely mesmerized by Olatunji’s portraits. His fictionalized sitters, often painted on a larger-than-life scale, are so realistically portrayed that they could be mistaken for photographs from afar. This London-based self-taught artist’s hyper-realistic work is meticulously painted in charcoal and pastel.

The gaze of the Girl with Green Scarf II draws one in to notice subtle facial scarification marks made to distinguish cultural groups and rank in his native Nigeria. The folds in the green scarf drape softly; her skin glistens. The culmination of Olatunji’s painterly prowess creates a radiant moment between the portrait and the viewer. His ability to forge these meaningful connections sets his work apart from other artists.

Jessica Vollrath at Pencil on Paper Gallery: A preview of Jessica Vollrath’s works from Dallas’ own Pencil on Paper Gallery definitely piqued our interest. Her spiritual paintings often depict figures posed in front of stained glass, beautifully capturing light, color, and the figure.

Vollrath’s work is also her personal journey as she continues to explore her own identity and place in this world.

In paintings such as In Anticipation of Love and Tell Them You Are My Sister, she creates a mood through layered images, gestures, and distinct tones that direct the viewer’s focus. Notice how the painter uses color to unify her figures.

In the artist’s canvas In Anticipation of Love, some of the figures are with blue skin, others wearing a similar bluish tone with white shirts, accent jewelry, or the whites of a hymn page or Bible. Yet this local talent has chosen to skillfully render the girl’s face and ponytails in crimson red. Blue arms in the background joyfully extend as if to embrace this young child in this uplifting image of spiritual life.

Natia Lemay at Yossi Milo Gallery: We’re looking forward to seeing more work from Natia Lemay at DAF. We discovered her standout tondo paintings at Yossi Milo’s booth at Untitled Art fair in Miami this past December. We were drawn to how she employs circular canvases as a lens for her subjects.

In Hope is a waking dream, the artist recasts an archetypal subject as a pensive pairing that tenderly details mother and child softly enveloped and emerging from her trademark black background. One could get lost in the incredible attention to detail paid to the black quilted bed cover and flowers on the table.

Alas, the warmer skin tones of the child’s face resting on her arms and the mother’s solemn glance upwards cast a contemplative tone. The tension between what is visible and barely visible rewards viewers who investigate her biographical narratives of her uneasy childhood as a mixed-race, Afro-Indigenous person who never felt like she fit in.

We’ll also be looking to see works by Kay WalkingStick — known for her groundbreaking fusion of Native American themes with modernist abstraction — at Hales Gallery, Rush Baker IV at Keijsers Koning, and Linus Borgo at Yossi Milo, amongst many others.

Frank Hettig, Heritage Auctions’ VP of Modern & Contemporary Art, on Which European Galleries He’s Tracking at the Dallas Art Fair. 

Deborah Butterfield at Marlborough Gallery: At the fair, you will find familiar faces, such as the remarkable horse sculptures by American sculptor Deborah Butterfield (Marlborough Gallery, London, Madrid, Barcelona, New York). Butterfield’s sculptures are not only notable for their lifelike appearance but also for the way they explore themes of nature, animal presence, and environmental consciousness.

Imi Knoebel at Galerie Christian Lethert: Another artist who has significantly impacted the contemporary art scene is the German talent Imi Knoebel, celebrated for his minimalist and abstract art. Emerging from the influential Düsseldorf Art Academy, Knoebel’s work is characterized by its focus on the fundamentals of color, form, and space.

Calum Innes at Kerlin Gallery: Dublin’s Kerlin Gallery will show Scottish artist Calum Innes’ new paintings. Innes is best known for his unique method of “unpainting,” a technique where he initially applies paint to the canvas in traditional methods but then selectively removes portions of the paint with turpentine. This process creates a compelling interplay between presence and absence, solidity and transience, lending his works a sense of fluidity and dynamism.

Ashley Zelinskie at Torch Gallery: Besides the above, you’ll want to discover new artists and see what the younger generation is up to. I am curious to see the artworks by the conceptual artist Ashley Zelinskie at Amsterdam dealer Torch Gallery.

Zelinskie has been working alongside NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope team for more than eight years as well as collaborating with astronauts, scientists, and engineers in the aerospace industry.

Her work reflects the discoveries being made not only within the space industry but in various other scientific genres such as, genetics, biology, technology, and computer science. At Dallas Art Fair she will be presenting some new works based on recently released images from the Webb Telescope as well as work inspired by the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse that is happening on Monday, April 8.

Thandiwe Muriu at 193 Gallery: Another interesting artist is Kenyan photographer Thandiwe Muriu presented by Paris’ 193 Gallery. Muriu’s work is celebrated for its vivid portrayal of African beauty and fashion, often featuring bold colors, intricate patterns, and unique textures that reflect the rich cultural heritage of her homeland. Her photography goes beyond mere aesthetics; it is a powerful expression of identity, self-love, and empowerment, particularly for African women.

Ailbhe Ní Bhriain at Kerlin Gallery: Another Kerlin Gallery talent brought to Dallas is Irish artist Bhriain, who will command attention at the fair for her large-scale tapestry, Interval I, 10 by 13 feet, woven on a Jacquard loom; this work features striking imagery of underground caves, architectural ruins, strange animals, and archival portraits, threading an imagined line between contemporary threats of extinction and ancient narratives of the underworld.

 All images courtesy the artists and their respective galleries.

Dallas Art Fair, Thursday – Sunday, April 4 – 7, at Fashion Industry Gallery; tickets, exhibitors, more, info here.