Gallery 86 welcomed its first group of students for its first round of group drawing classes in March. This group drawing series is named after the book of the same name, “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.” The class focuses on rejecting the concept of talent and instead, focusing on drawing as a skill that anyone can improve upon with just a little practice. To do this, the class series employs unconventional drawing lessons, including drawing with your non-dominant hand, drawing negatives spaces only, drawing images upside down, and drawing light first, instead of shadows.

Artist and co-founder, Juan Castillo, was invited to curate the annual Hispanic Heritage Month show at Dallas City Hall. As curator, Castillo selected works from artists familiar to the gallery, including co-founder Nicolas Gonzalez, Hermila Cuevas, and Jesus Alba (iAM450). The works touched on issues of immigration and indigenous representation. The show is on display from September 19th to October 16th of 2024.

Gallery 86 inaugurated its arts education offerings with a series of painting workshops led by co-founder, Nicolas Gonzalez. Gonzalez was awarded an ArtsActivate grant through the City of Dallas’s Office of Arts and Culture to lead a class of students through the creation of a painting, starting with stretching a canvas on a frame. The classes culminated with a student art show open to the general public.

Aurora Dallas partnered with Gallery 86 and Primos Dallas to host Art Quest in Pleasant Grove. Art Quest is an art scavenger hunt created by Aurora to bring art directly into underserved communities. They partner with local organizations to plan and host the event in various Dallas neighborhoods, which this year included Pleasant Grove, South Dallas, and Bachman Lake. This partnership presented Gallery 86 with an opportunity to continue to grow and expand the arts in Pleasant Grove.

Gallery 86 hosted a Dia de los Muertos event and student art show in partnership with the School for the Talented and Gifted in Pleasant Grove, as well as the Young Women’s STEAM Academy at Balch Springs Middle School. Furthermore, the Gallery applied for funding and was awarded the Culture of Value grant from the Dallas Office of Arts and Culture and the National Endowment for the Arts.

For our very first public event, the Gallery featured an artist talk by co-founder Juan Castillo on the subject of artificial intelligence (AI) and art. The event was supported by the Dallas Office of Arts & Cultures, and included several digital pieces on display.

Celebration & Reflection is a show dedicated to the many sides of the human spirit. Whether defined by looking to one's roots for a source of joy and celebration, or looking to moment's of overcoming obstacles for a sense of pride, this show includes pieces for all viewers.

Home: Meditations on Race and Nationality, the title of the gallery’s second show, alludes to the role race and nationality play in our understanding of home. Differing concepts of home contribute to cultural tensions, which are experienced both privately and publicly. Artists interpreted the theme of the show individually. Some focused on American nationality, personal experiences, or macro-scale, abstract concepts. Others still decided to deal with the theme in a more direct way by addressing the 2016 US presidential election and its aftermath. Ultimately, the pieces explore the limits of our principles and values, race, religion, shared experiences, and history, in binding seemingly disparate groups under a common label.

New Beginnings, the title of the gallery’s first show, is a double entendre. It refers to both the beginning of the art gallery, and is also an homage to the April 4th founding of Sigma Lambda Beta, the nation’s largest Latino-based fraternity, of which all Gallery 86 founders are members. Works span many media, including traditional painting, charcoal drawing, and digital. The pieces touch upon themes of failure, resurgence, immigration, nostalgia, and rebirth. In all works, the artists reveal a part of themselves as they explore the rite-of-passage that is embarking upon an unknown future, while drawing strength from experiences past.