Texas Vignette Returns For A Seventh Year

When the anonymous artist activists Guerrilla Girls called out New York City art museums and galleries for not showing enough women artists forty years ago, inspiring the creation of a woman-only art fair in Dallas was probably not on their minds. 

It’s a fact, women artists are still underrepresented in the art world. So when Jessica Ingle launched Texas Vignette in 2017, she was filling a niche and taking a calculated risk.

Traditional art fairs focus on the relationship between the collector and the gallery owner.  The closest fair in that model in Texas was the Dallas Art Fair, which started in 2009 and continues to attract some of the hottest international and local galleries in a renovated midcentury warehouse in downtown Dallas. Not even Houston, the biggest city in the state, could hold down a fair until this year when Untitled Art Fair debuted at the George R. Brown Convention Center.

Seven years later the woman-only artist art fair is still happening. It runs this weekend in its new permanent facility in the Dallas Design District. The model is more progressive and innovative than the typical art fair. Artists are part of the process the entire period. They apply for consideration, are chosen by a guest curator who then organizes the fair like an exhibition. There are no galleries. Instead, patrons directly engage with artists, who pocket all proceeds, meaning they don’t have to share a cut with a gallery.

Maggie Adler, formerly a curator at the Amon Carter Museum of Art in Fort Worth, is this year’s curator and juror. She winnowed the 224 applications down to 55 artists who display more than 100 artworks.

“Vignette exists to amplify the voices of women artists in Texas – and this year’s group is a powerful testament to why that mission matters,” Adler said in a statement. “These artists are innovating, experimenting and fearlessly pushing boundaries across disciplines. It’s an honor to help bring their work to light and offer a platform where their talent is seen, supported and celebrated.”

True to its mission, she chose artists who range from early career to veterans in the field.

Fort Worth’s Ariel Davis is a painter, consultant and collector who has witnessed the ups and downs of the regional art scene. This is her second time at Vignette. She called the exhibition powerful and vital.

“It’s a unique opportunity to share space with so many talented contemporary women artists from across the state…where our work can be experienced in person and viewed collectively, allowing for meaningful dialogue between diverse artistic voices,” she said.

Davis has pushed herself, forming more sophisticated art and expanding into sculpture, which has become a strength. She’s displaying a sculpture and large painting recently shown in a solo exhibition at Artspace 111 in Fort Worth.

Alex Light, also from Fort Worth, is a veteran dancer and choreographer who recently left Texas Ballet Theatre, the regional ballet company. But she’s also an emerging visual artist. She’s displaying new collages with a keen sense of kinetics and color. They look and feel like a choreographed work.

“Collage has become another way for me to explore memory, time, and the body in space. I’m honored to have this work included in Texas Vignette and grateful to Adler for her vision in shaping the exhibition,” she said.

One of the ironies of an art fair eschewing galleries is that the one of the chosen artists also owns a gallery. Dr. Valerie Bennett Gillespie owns Pencil on Paper Gallery in Dallas, which represents local artists at different stages of their careers. She’s a mainstay of the Dallas art scene, seemingly everywhere, including at the fair, whether as a participant or advocate from the sidelines.

This year, she is in it, showing off her figurative and autobiographical paintings.

As an artist, she said, “it’s a place where I can share my creative spirit with my artist community and also be exposed to the beautiful talents of Texas women artists. As a patron and exhibitor of Vignette for the last seven years, I have found such solace and peace within this art fair.”

The seventh annual Texas Vignette Art Fair takes place at On The Levee (1108 Quaker St., Dallas, TX 75207). The fair is free and open to the public October 3-4. For more information, visit here.