The opening reception on Friday was bustling with both the featured artists and their friends and family. The walls of the space were lined with works spanning the gamut of genres, from portraits to landscape, abstract to architectural. Live music was provided by Spicy Violin (producer and violinist James Mahler), who serenaded guests with arrangements of pop songs and original compositions.
There was even a man who had no connection to the school or artists wandering around the premises with a camera and microphone and challenging guests to religious debates — the true mark of a noteworthy event. For any newcomers featured in the exhibition, it was quite an auspicious debut.
The photography department at Dallas College is one of a few community college programs in the area to offer a comprehensive, hands-on and accessible arts education. The choice facing many pursuing a creative career has always been between an expensive and time-consuming university degree or braving the self-taught route. Programs like the one offered at Dallas College, which offers affordable classes with flexible schedules, provide a happy medium to aspiring artists.
One of the students featured in the exhibition, Teresa Jackson, is a clinical psychologist by trade who is pursuing fine art with an emphasis in photography concurrently. She has two photos in the gallery, and tells us they’re part of an ongoing body of work that aims to dismantle racial stereotypes.
Dallas College photography student Teresa Jackson with her piece titled "Unbothered."
Carly May Gravley
“The pieces are from a larger project featuring Black men and Black boys to basically showcase their humanity,” she says. “I thought that if [...] there was some way that I can have a positive impact by creating images of Black men and boys in their natural, organic element, doing whatever they do, and capture who they are no different than other men and boys [...] and no less deserving of protection and being celebrated.”
She points to one of her photos in the display, “Unbothered," a black and white shot of a young boy playing in a children’s fountain at a park.
“He hasn’t learned yet that maybe he’s not safe [...] or maybe he’s viewed as a threat,” Jackson says. “He’s just embodying peace and joy.”
One featured guest artist is Durado D. Brooks, Jr., a photographer and filmmaker who contributed striking lightboxes of cityscapes to the exhibition. His work has taken the Dallas native all over the world, but A Decisive Vision marks his first time exhibiting in his hometown.
“I’ve been kind of on a nomadic creative journey since I graduated high school,” Brooks says. “St. Barts to LA to Brooklyn. New Orleans, Barcelona, back to New Orleans and a million places in between.”
Brooks is excited to be back in town and showing his work alongside up-and-coming local talent.
“I’m grateful to share the walls with all of these young, talented artists,” Brooks says. “I’m looking forward to meeting some of the people behind these other artworks.”
One guest artist featured in the exhibition is Ron Shipp, an accomplished local photographer known for his striking pictures of the Dallas skyline. In addition to displaying several mounted works in the gallery, Shipp was selling smaller, unframed prints from a table at the reception while cheerily explaining the creative and technical process behind them.
“So, that’s actually about 40 images overlaid,” he says, showing an image of the Dallas skyline with a web of lightning woven above. “Those are individual lightning bolts. But what you saw over the hours of the storm felt more like this.”
Shipp is a former Dallas College student himself, but not from the photography department. He says he started pursuing photography only around six years ago.
“Always wanted to. Couldn’t afford it,” he says. “Then I could, so I did.”
In a full circle moment, Shipp will be returning to Dallas College this coming week to deliver a seminar to current students.
The Adolphus Tower Gallery opened last year as a collaboration between Dallas College, Downtown Dallas Inc., art advisory firm FGIII Fine Art Production and Adolphus Tower owners Hoque Global. It was conceived of as a space to bring visibility to student and faculty works, and it doesn’t get more visible than a glass-enclosed space in the heart of Downtown Dallas.
The space has housed several exhibitions of work by Dallas College students and established artists. A Decisive Vision is the first show at the gallery dedicated solely to photography.
A Decisive Vision: New Perspectives from Dallas College Faculty and Students is curated by Randall Garrett and Frankie Garcia III. It will be displayed at the Adolphus Tower Gallery, 1412 Main St., through March 29.
