The new Dragon Street location of Read Contemporary Dallas, a gallery that curates and has ongoing exhibits of Contemporary International Artists and an important roster of the best working contemporary Aboriginal Artists of our time, is now open.

Gallery owner Saher Saman brings his distinctive eye to Dallas after extensive work throughout the country, most recently Santa Fe where he remains the co-owner of Marji Gallery.

The current exhibit will feature the works of several highly celebrated Aboriginal Artists of our time including Kudditji Kngwarreye, Samantha Hobson and Rosella Namok. Created by the foremost contemporary Aboriginal artists, these works are the product of meticulous traditions. Many of these artists have been featured in the finest museums and public collections throughout the world.

 “Dallas is the ideal location for this gallery and I think people will be blown away by these artists,” Saman says. “This work is down to earth and meditative. It examines the reflective, spiritual moments one takes after they’ve spent years working hard to gain a place in the world.”

During its first year, the gallery plans to host unprecedented exhibits including one that focuses on the early years of Coco Chanel from private collection of Claire Shaeffer.

Visit the gallery Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 1507 Dragon St, Dallas, TX 75207.

Exhibition Artists:

• Samantha Hobson: Samantha’s work, together with the work of other Lockhart River Gang artists challenges accepted notions of what Aboriginal art looks like. Samantha is one of the groups most complex artists and her paintings are some of the most confronting to emerge from them. She has had several solo exhibitions since her initial exhibition in Brisbane in 2002 and her work is represented in major public galleries across Australia.
• Rosella Namok: Rosella began painting as a young girl when helping her father decorate the bodies of dancers with ochre paints at traditional ceremonies. These ancestral markings are still strong elements in her art today, together with other traditional symbolic patterns learnt from her grandmother. She paints using her fingers to mark the thick acrylic layer, a method derived from the sand drawing style taught to her by her grandmother. Namok’s first major award was when she won the Australian Heritage Commission’s Indigenous Art of Place award in 1998. She held her first solo exhibition “Bout here” in 1999. In 2000 she won the Lin Onus Youth Art Award and, in 2003, received the Australian Centenary Medal for “distinguished services to Indigenous art.”
• Ningura Naparrula: Ningura is featured at the Muse Du Qi Branly at The Australian Indigenous Art Commission, which is one of the most significant cultural projects in France.

The gallery features the works of more than 20 of the top contemporary Aboriginal arts, for futher information visit their website www.readcontemporary.com.

 Gallery Director: Saher Saman

Mr. Saman was born and raised in Jerusalem. The attended the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. He had a long career in Art Direction in the film industry in Chicago and New York. He opened his first gallery in Santa Fe in 2007 featuring contemporary American and international artists. He chose Dallas as his next home, based on a long-term relationship with the city and Texas collectors who strongly supported his vision and collected his Artists from his early years in Santa Fe.

Manager: Elizabeth Guber

A graduate of Parsons School of Design in New York, Ms. Guber an investor and Manager of the gallery.