Houston Art Gallery Association Holds City-wide 2022 Spring Art Gallery Celebrationby Virginia Billeaud AndersonMay 14, 20220Shares00Dmitri Koustov, “Blue Bamboo,” 2022, Oil on canvas, 55 x 75 in+2View GalleryHouston Art Gallery Association Holds City-wide 2022 Spring Art Gallery Celebration123456Dmitri Koustov, “BonBon,” 2021, Oil on canvas, 55 x 75 inHouston Art Gallery Association Holds City-wide 2022 Spring Art Gallery CelebrationDmitri Koustov, “The Kiss,” 2022, Oil on canvas, 55 x 75 inHouston Art Gallery Association Holds City-wide 2022 Spring Art Gallery CelebrationDmitri Koustov, “Blue Bamboo,” 2022, Oil on canvas, 55 x 75 inHouston Art Gallery Association Holds City-wide 2022 Spring Art Gallery CelebrationGregory Hayes, Untitled (BYR), 2022, Acrylic and graphite on canvas, 60 x 60 in.Houston Art Gallery Association Holds City-wide 2022 Spring Art Gallery CelebrationGregory Hayes, Untitled (VoPb), 2022, Acrylic and graphite on canvas, 60 x 60 in.Houston Art Gallery Association Holds City-wide 2022 Spring Art Gallery CelebrationGregory Hayes, Untitled, RYPgR), 2022, Acrylic and graphite on canvas, 48 x 48 in.Being a successful gallery owner isn’t easy. Gallery space, staff, insurance, movers and installers, IT services are only part of the overhead. High costs leave no room for stupid exhibition choices. How do you decide about marketing? Art fairs? And pouring out the woodworks are characters flipping art on the cheap. Houston abounds with artists dealing out of rinky-dink studios.In early 2018, a bunch of Houston gallery owners got together and formed the Houston Art Gallery Association (HAGA). They decided that by working together they could support each other as well as justifiably spin Houston as the important international art city that it is. HAGA filed for non-profit status, published by-laws and elected a Board. It also built a website and began to promote members’ exhibitions on social media. To crank things up and generate gallery sales, HAGA is having its 2022 Spring Art Gallery Celebration, a three-day event in which all the members open their galleries to visitors, naturally with refreshments, on Friday, May 13th from 6pm to 8pm, Saturday, May 14th from 12pm to 5pm, and Sunday, May 15th from 12pm to 5pm. The HAGA website provides a map with gallery locations.HAGA announced it is “composed of the finest art galleries in Houston, each with their own distinct programming, representing the most outstanding artists in Texas and around the world.” Member galleries are: Anya Tish Gallery, Bill Arning Exhibitions, Bisong Art Gallery, Catherine Couturier Gallery, Deborah Colton Gallery, Dimmitt Contemporary Art, ELLIO Fine Art, Foltz Fine Art, Foto Relevance, G Spot Contemporary Art Space, Gallery Sonja Roesch, Heidi Vaughan Fine Art, Jack Meier Gallery, Laura Rathe Fine Art, McClain Gallery, Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art, Redbud Gallery, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, The Grogan Gallery, and Thornwood Gallery. Admission is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. Some member galleries have extended days and hours for the event. Visit the HAGA website for details and to find out more information about each of our member galleries.I’m including images by Dmitri Koustov to give you a sense of the kind of outstanding presentation being offered to viewers. Texas-based, Russian-born painter Koustov is part of Anya Tish Gallery’s two-artist exhibition “Rubbish Rhapsody.” His colorful luminous abstract oil paintings are inspired by the sky and landscape. Koustov teaches art at Texas A&M in College Station.I’m also including images by Brooklyn-based artist Gregory Hayes. Hayes, who works rather unconventionally with acrylic, opened the one-person exhibition “Boundaries Made of Smoke” at Dimmitt Contemporary Art. Years back Hayes threw his paint brushes in the garbage and began mixing paint in a jar and dispensing tiny drops, as if from an eye dropper. When the drops hit the canvas, they appear like tiny transparent globes inside of which are jewel-like multi-colored swirls of paint. I can’t help but think of the swirling colors inside the marbles we played with, although some young snots might not get this reference. The drops’ kaleidoscopic affect is remarkable. To “paint” like this must take a very long time. Hopefully Hayes has gallery assistants helping him drip, so he has time to run around New York and all those places in Europe for his shows. See Also Sixty Vines Doubles Down on Sustainability https://www.artgallerieshouston.com/https://anyatishgallery.com/http://www.dimmittcontemporaryart.com/What's Your Reaction?Excited0Happy0In Love0Not Sure0Silly000