The newest addition to Houston's gallery scenen comes via former McClain Gallery director Erin Dorn, who has struck out on her own. This month, she launches her greatly anticipated art space Seven Sisters around the corner from Bludorn resturaunt and blocks from the Residences at The Allen. Dorn's gallery will showcase fine art, craft, design, and special projects. The distinctive name was conceptualized with the star cluster Pleiades in mind. "Seven Sisters is somehing that's mythological, but it's also astronomical," Dorn says, "It embodies an ethos of collaboration, creation, pathfinding, and storytelling. I want it to be a tight program, but I also want to have room for evolution." With a moniker both personal and metaphysical, its aesthetic mirrors Dorn's intrerest in alchemy and mystic thoughts, as well as, her lineage as the daughter of a mother who was one of seven sibling sisters.
One corner of a mid-century warehouse building that was once home to cold storage for Antone's Import Co. has been transformed into a handsome 3,500-square-foot nexus for Dorn's thoughtful curation of art and design discoveries. (Conveniently, Artist's Framing Resource is a neighbor in the center by Kaldis Development.) Seven Sisters' lineup features a few artists with whom Dorn had previously worked, including textile pioneer Elaine Reichek, provocateur Seth Cameron of Bruce High Quality Foundaition, ceramicist Julia Kunin, and painter Kent Dorn, the dealer's husband. Among the fresh talent pool and Seven Sisters' opening act as Brie Ruais, who combines work in clay with feminist, performative land-art components. The gallerist who's savvy about the marketplace after 15 years with blue-chip McCalin Gallery, seeks to dig deeper into artist relationships with her new endeavor and take a chance on some newcomers. Case in point is Yale-trained octogenarian painter Janet Alling, a student of Alex Katz and Philip Pearlstein who has never recieved her due. Dorn hopes to remedy that by showing Alling's animistic blossom canvases in March 2024.
With a program mindful of gender inclusivity, Seven Sisters is also fluent in design. "I've always been interested in domesticity," Dorn says. "I worked at Kuhl-Linscomb for a bit and at a beautiful design store during college called Gardens in Austin. I'm a design freak; I love furniture, pottery, craft ... so I'm marrying all those things here." On view in the gallery is the furniture prowess of former Houston Center for Contemporary Craft resident Miles Lawton Gracey, whom Dorn will carry. His intricate ebony-and-Bubinga cabinet in a gallery alcove could be mistaken for a 1900-era work by museum- collected Wiener Werkstatte. Plans also call for a shop within the gallery, Vessel, stocked with collectible artworks and objects crafted from talents in Seven Sister's stable.
Joining Dorn's art-and-design enterprise are Tom Raith - a veteran of Sunset Settings and McClain Gallery - who shares the gallerist's eye and commitment to artists. Opening exhibition for "Brie Ruais: Penumbra," Saturday, November 4, noon to 4pm, through December 23; 805 Rhode Place, sevensisters.gallery.