The 2025 High quality Artwork Print Honest introduced in report numbers of patrons, younger and outdated, to East Level’s Black Artwork in America. (Pictures by Isadora Pennington)
Black Artwork in America (BAIA) was positively teeming with guests this weekend throughout the 2025 High quality Artwork Print Honest. Now in its third 12 months, this annual custom invitations new and skilled patrons to the gallery in East Level for a weekend-long celebration of Black printmakers.
The partitions had been crammed with compelling prints alongside their woodcut reliefs. Quite a few prints tucked neatly within plastic sleeves had been stationed all through the house, and potential patrons sifted via them to seek out their subsequent buy. Across the nook, artists addressed an viewers throughout featured artist talks, together with Tracy Mims, who additionally carried out an artist demonstration on the patio afterward.
Bustling with exercise, the house was alive with the power of the occasion. Amongst them, Black Artwork in America founder and CEO Najee Dorsey roamed the gang with a microphone in hand, able to announce the following programming for the day. Embodying a palpable drive and apparent enthusiasm, Dorsey warmly welcomed attendees, directed patrons to the gross sales desk and ensured that the weekend’s festivities went off with out a hitch.
“It was overwhelmingly lovely and superb,” stated Dorsey after the occasion. “We had been up 40% over final 12 months, and we had much more individuals this 12 months, too.” Whereas the excessive ticket for this 12 months’s occasion was down from final 12 months, the quantity of artwork gross sales exploded. This tracks with what Dorsey and plenty of different curators have come to grasp in regards to the present market — smaller value level gadgets usually tend to transfer on this economic system.
For Dorsey and the crew of Black Artwork in America, the High quality Artwork Print Sale affords an unbelievable alternative not solely to promote works but in addition to introduce the general public to a number of the finest up to date Black printmakers working as we speak. By artist demos, artist talks and different enjoyable extra programming like a barbeque, Dorsey has created a welcoming and inclusive artwork competition that brings the group collectively and encourages new generations of artwork collectors.
“To ensure that us to have a thriving arts group, it’s important to have people who find themselves shopping for in, and also you’re always stitching seeds for a brand new crop of collectors to help the native arts ecosystem,” defined Dorsey. Since shifting to Atlanta, he has needed to take his paintings to different, extra established markets to make gross sales. That was an issue for Dorsey, and it’s one thing he got down to treatment.
“We’re working to be part of cultivating and rising extra collectors, extra new patrons and that comes via schooling, engagement and making them really feel welcome. That’s positively what they get from BAIA, however it’s a whole lot of work.”
Whereas the Print Honest has occurred at Black Artwork in America for the previous three years since their grand opening in 2022, it’s only the most recent in a sequence of artwork festivals and festivals that Dorsey has championed in his profession.
A prolific Black artist in his personal proper, Dorsey embraces his Southern roots and depicts scenes of African American life via blended media and digital collages. What started as a childhood passion has grown through the years right into a vibrant profession of award-winning unbiased artwork that has been featured in quite a few group and solo exhibitions, tv options and in print. Lately, his work was featured because the signature paintings for the 2024 Atlanta Jazz Pageant.
Whereas Dorsey’s private paintings has been creating through the years and has earned him a rightful place among the many greats of as we speak, he has not been solely targeted on his personal profession. With a thoughts for group constructing, he first opened a artistic hub along with his spouse Seteria in Blytheville, Arkansas, again in 2000. The house was a hybrid artwork gallery, espresso store and used e-book retailer that served as a launchpad for his entrepreneurial, multifaceted artwork profession. 5 years later, in 2005, he formally turned a full-time artist.
Throughout these early years, Dorsey noticed firsthand the challenges and struggles of African American artists attempting to make a reputation for themselves within the artwork world as we speak. Consequently, he launched Black Artwork in America in 2010 as a free, online-only useful resource for artists that aimed to extend publicity and join artists with patrons and one another. The community rapidly gained traction and have become a number one portal for African American artists, with a month-to-month attain of 750,000 individuals via its on-line platform.
When Dorsey noticed a possibility to rework a former church on a extremely seen nook in East Level into an artwork gallery with sculpture gardens, he jumped on the likelihood. It debuted in 2022 and has seen regular development in attendance, participation and artwork gross sales ever since. Final 12 months, for instance, the group hit a serious milestone with over $1 million in paintings gross sales.
Wynter Bell, an intern with BAIA, was available throughout the Print Honest and took a couple of moments to speak about what makes the establishment and Dorsey so particular. “I’d describe him as a artistic chief as a result of he’s at all times pondering exterior the field,” stated Bell, who at present attends the Savannah School of Artwork and Design (SCAD).
“He’s at all times pondering of one thing new, however, on the identical time, he has all of the experiences and the assets and he reaches out to us faculty youngsters and tries to assist us develop and observe within the Black artwork legacy, for actual. He’s at all times instructing and exhibiting us the way in which, too.” Bell describes the vibe at BAIA as being filled with actual Southern allure in a manner that’s approachable and comfy with out sacrificing requirements of advantageous artwork and craftsmanship.
One other younger addition to the BAIA crew, Nathan Addley, is an oil painter who’s at present getting his masters from SCAD. His paintings caught Dorsey’s eye throughout an exhibit on the faculty, which led to an internship and gallery illustration for the younger artist. “He’s always attempting to construct. He’s constructing for our group, which I admire probably the most. We’re all working towards the identical aim — get the work on the market, signify our individuals and our artists in one of the best gentle attainable.” Addley appreciates the chance to see behind the scenes of the advantageous artwork gallery world, and he was impressed and a bit overwhelmed by the quantity of individuals coming into BAIA throughout the Print Honest this weekend.
It’s not solely younger individuals who admire the group and gathering house that Dorsey has constructed at BAIA, and that might not be extra evidenced than by talking with Lamar T. Wilson, who took the time to inform me about a number of the historic items in BAIA’s assortment. In his profession, Wilson opened High quality Arts of Atlanta in 1989, which turned probably the most profitable African American artwork retailer within the nation. He later labored as a curator and gallery director for Morris Brown School and on the Banneker-Douglass Museum in Annapolis, Maryland, and developed a touring exhibit referred to as Trails, Tracks & Tarmacs: Lives and Legacies of Northern Anne Arundel County. He’s additionally a longtime collector and has targeted lately on showcasing his Thompson-Wilson Assortment of artwork.
Wilson holds a wealth of understanding in regards to the significance of the legacy artists on show at BAIA, the likes of which embrace James Lesesne Wells, Elizabeth Catlett and David Driskell, amongst others. He relayed, with unbelievable element, the tales of those notable artists and advised me that it’s vital to incorporate these historic works alongside up to date artists. “Legacy issues,” Wilson emphasised. “A lot of the artists who’re right here would in all probability let you know that they had been impressed by one in all these artists in some unspecified time in the future or one other. It’s additionally vital to know that these artists had been making waves when there wasn’t a lot curiosity in Black artwork.”
As we glanced across the room, we noticed firsthand the alternate of paintings as items moved from the partitions and show circumstances to the gross sales counter after which out the door, able to brighten the partitions of collectors from all walks of life. For Dorsey, this 12 months’s successes affirm what he already knew to be true — accessible artwork experiences that welcome publicity to up to date artists, entrench the historical past of a process-based craft comparable to printmaking and provide inexpensive artworks on the market for brand new and established patrons alike are important for a wholesome and thriving arts ecosystem. And that sort of help is strictly what he desires to see flourish at Black Artwork in America.
“On the finish of the day, that’s probably the most sustainable you might be; if you serve the plenty in your artwork ecosystem,” stated Dorsey. Should you missed this 12 months’s High quality Artwork Print Honest, fear not. The works from this exhibit will stay on show via the tip of the month. Try the Black Artwork in America web site to be taught extra in regards to the gallery and its programming.
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Isadora Pennington is senior editor of artwork + design and dance. An skilled author and photographer with a deep love for the humanities, Isadora based the Sketchbook publication with Tough Draft Atlanta in 2022. She can be president of the Avondale Arts Alliance and director of the Avondale Arts Heart.
