Daisha Board Gallery, an eponymous Black-owned contemporary art gallery in West Dallas, is creating not just a space to view and buy art but also a space of welcoming for people who may be new to contemporary art spaces.
“The gallery is for everybody, and I especially want Black people to feel comfortable here. It is a vibe; it is about community and making people feel good,” Board says.
There is something cinematic about walking into an opening at Daisha Board Gallery. Hip-hop, R&B and classics are being spun by a DJ. Complimentary drinks are served by a Black-owned bartending service.
There are people of all ages, of all shades, but noticeably and joyfully there are Black people — colorful, patterned, cool and proud — all looking at art, talking about art and buying art.
This was not always the case at gallery openings in Dallas. For over a decade, this writer was one of a handful of Black people engaging with the contemporary art scene.
However, with the opening of her gallery, Board is now providing a space where everyone from celebrities like D.L. Hughley to politicians to everyday Black Dallasites can enjoy and celebrate artists who are sharing unique and heretofore underrepresented visions of the world.
Daisha Board, who is 44, was born in Queens, N.Y., but grew up in Arlington, where she graduated from Lamar High School. Board attended historically Black Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Fla., on a full track and field scholarship.
She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science and African American studies, married, had three children, and worked in the finance/mortgage industry for over 15 years.
But the arts have always been part of Board’s life. She credits her grandmother, Carmen “Tiny” Pinckney of Harlem, for introducing her to fashion, theater and art. “She traveled the world collecting jewelry and art,” Board says. “She is my forever inspiration.”
After leaving a job in 2016, Board started taking her daughter to museums and art galleries, where they both noticed that few artists who looked like them were represented in such spaces. In 2017, after a visit to the Dallas Contemporary, Board decided to try to organize more Black people to look at contemporary art. This resulted in the creation of Black Sheep Art Culture, an art consulting firm that Board founded.
Through Black Sheep, Board started meeting and managing artists as well as cultivating a diverse collector base. She also started mastering her use of social media to help connect and amplify the artists and exhibitions she loved, curated or organized.
Board partnered with local galleries and art fairs and became an advocate for greater representation and consistent opportunities for BIPOC artists, women artists and queer artists. After a few years, Board was ready to take the next step and open her own gallery.
After Board was turned down for a year by various developers, Erin Cluley, director of Erin Cluley Gallery and a friend and supporter of Black Sheep, told Board that a commercial space next to her own second location, Cluley Projects, was coming available.
“Daisha is bringing a fresh energy to the Dallas art scene with exciting exhibitions and an eager community of collectors,” Cluley says. “When she decided to move her gallery in a couple doors down from Cluley Projects, we welcomed her with open arms.”
Within months, Board had signed a lease and was launching her debut exhibition with artist Gerald Bell. Next up would be a show by Sharidyn Barnes, precisely the type of show — an up-and-coming Black artist from Savannah College of Art and Design’s master of fine arts program — that would normally skip Dallas. Barnes’ work, mostly created for her thesis show, consists of drawings and paintings, including several self-portraits.
Particularly striking are Barnes’ portraits using colored ink on paper. The intricate mark-making swirls and layers make the textured hair of her subjects, in particular, feel vibrant and alive. It’s something that many video game developers could take a lesson from.
Some of the portraits have stark white shapes on the faces, as if pieces are missing. It suggests that life has sucked away essential parts of these people — that perhaps interacting with whiteness, in particular, can make a Black person feel not fully there.
Smaller black-and-white ink portraits show the same people fully formed, which helps the viewer further appreciate not just the artist’s skill in draftsmanship but also the conceptual leap of the larger drawings.
Currently, the gallery features the exhibition “Patchwork” by Jennifer Monet Cowley, a longtime artist and curator who has created many strong shows for the African American Museum in Fair Park over the last few years. Her work unfolds as colorful quilts, collages with visible threads, prints of breasts, torsos, hands and feet on painted canvases. The show is bright, joyful and teeming with life.
The vision of Daisha Board Gallery is starting to come into focus with these shows and is providing a space for Black female artists to shine and be their full authentic selves. It is not the same sterile white cube gallery that has dominated the format for the last few decades.
Visitors to the gallery find warmth, scents and community. It operates both as a real-life destination and a social media hub that can connect interested and like-minded artists, collectors and enthusiasts.
Daisha Board Gallery feels like coming home — and that is quite a feat for both the gallery and the gallerist herself.
As the gallery and the artists it shows and represents continue to gather steam, Daisha Board Gallery is loudly and boldly asserting itself as an essential venue for contemporary art in Dallas.
Details
“Patchwork” by Jennifer Monet Cowley is on view through March 19 at Daisha Board Gallery, 2111 Sylvan Ave., Dallas. Tuesday through Friday from noon to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 1 to 6 p.m. daishaboardgallery.com.
