With its myriad world class museums and art organizations, Houston is known globally as a city for visual arts, and our wealth of stellar galleries also makes H-town a prime art market for collectors.
But in post-pandemic times, we have lost a few of our popular — and just generally fun — collecting opportunities. Those big art events that brought art-lovers across the city together to see, be seen, and nab that perfect piece, are few and far between.
But now, art fans can rejoice, as the new — and entirely homegrown — Houston Art Fair makes its art mark on the city. Presented at Reeves Art + Design from Friday, January 26 through Sunday, January 28, the Houston Art Fair will showcase 40 up-and-coming contemporary artists bringing their best and latest work directly to collectors.
Canvassing artists
The fair weekend will be free and open to the public on January 27 and 28th. Those wanting to see, and perhaps buy early, should attend a special Collectors Preview Night on January 26, with half of the ticket proceeds donated to Project Row Houses.
Photo courtesy of Houston Art Fair.
The Houston Art Fair will showcase the work of painter Nana Sampong
The initial idea for creating a new kind of art fair began in 2023 as Reeves Art + Design received plenty of positive feedback after organizing shows with an objective to “revitalize and recharge art community in Houston,” Hannah Rees, gallery director, describes.
Gallery owner Matt Reeves explains that after hearing from many artists about working together, they knew that traditional, solo shows would not be enough.
“We wanted to create a grassroots, accessible environment to share all of this work with our audience in a way that celebrates everything Houston has to offer,” Reeves tells CultureMap.
Rees says after the call went out for artists they received around 150 applicants to show at this inaugural Houston Art Fair. They were at first, she recalls, somewhat surprised, but very excited, about how fast the word on the fair spread — not just among Houston and Texas artists, but even in international art communities.
Even with so many “fantastic applicants,” they had to curate and narrow down to 40 selected artists in order to fit everyone within the gallery space and give them a large enough wall section to adequately represent some of their best work.
Drawing up a Houston showcase
The majority of the artists showcased in the Houston Arts Fair will be Houston-based, such as artist and sculptor Angel Oloshove, portraitist Margo Lunsford, fiber artist Demi Kahn, ceramic artist Gözde Kaya Hepislebut, and painter Nana Sampong, just to name a few.
A number of Dallas artists (Kev Madden, Tyler Casey) and Austin artists (Richard Ashby, Tina Ruyi), as well a few international participants — including artists from Spain and Canada — will participate.
Keeping with a goal of celebrating the Houston arts community and beyond during the fair, Rees says they knew they wanted to also partner with a Houston arts organization. They reached out to the Third Ward-rooted Project Row Houses, which has such an historic record of community-based art projects.
Along with half those Preview Night ticket sales going to Project Row Houses, three Project Row Houses artists— Rabea Ballin, Brian Ellison, and Anthony Suber — will be given prominent places within the fair to display their work.
A collection for collectors
The size of this first Houston Arts Fair will give collectors and viewers much too see without being overwhelming. The intimate scale of the show also will likely prove to be a welcoming factor to Houston experienced collectors and novice art buyers, alike.
Instead of large booths and cavernous spaces of some previous art collecting fairs, each artist receives a section of gallery wall space and given the freedom to arrange the pieces themselves.
Many of the artists will also attend that Collectors Night to talk about their work and process one-on-one with collectors and answer any questions they might have.
In presenting these artists to Houston the goal was to make this new fair as accessible to wide range of arts lovers as possible, from experienced collectors and those contemporary art admirers who perhaps have never thought of acquiring and collecting. Though collecting art can become a live-long love and adventure, Rees says they recognize it can also be an expensive endeavor.
They see the Houston Art Fair as becoming a kind of bridge between the artists and both seasoned collectors and those who want to know more about collecting. With this in mind, Rees says they intentionally organized around the idea of “having a wide range of prices, subject matter and mediums to encourage everyone to access these art spaces.”
One of the core concepts of the Fair is accessibility — not just for artists — so Rees says they want to cater to collectors of all price points, which leads back to that initial inspiration for founding the fair:
“We wanted to figure out a way to share these amazing artists with our audience in a fun, large-scale manner and celebrate Houston for the art hub that it is.”
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The Houston Art Fair will run Friday, January 26 through Sunday, January 28 at Reeves Art + Design (2415 Taft St.). For a full schedule and more information, visit Reeves Art + Design online.
