April 26 - May 10, 2025
From Fort Works Art:
“Gallery of Dreams will open This is How We Remember, a solo exhibition by artist Allie Regan Dickerson, on April 26. Presented in collaboration with Fort Works Art, the exhibition is the culmination of Dickerson’s three-month Artist-in-Residence program and will remain on view through May 10, 2025.
The residency was made possible by a grant from The Arts Fund of the North Texas Community Foundation, which supports initiatives that enhance the cultural fabric of Fort Worth. The program provided Dickerson with a $7,500 cash award, a monthly stipend for materials, and a dedicated studio space within Fort Works Art Gallery. This structure allowed for a collaborative experience where the artist’s process was accessible to the public.
The exhibition includes eight new mixed-media works that combine oil, collage, and embroidery on linen. The materials are modest but deliberate. Oil paint is used less for drama than for its capacity to obscure and reveal. Thread and paper are integrated not as decorative elements but as structural markers. Each piece builds slowly through layering and removal, holding together an uneasy balance between memory, erasure, and repair.
Dickerson’s process was developed in response to the writings of Martín Prechtel, particularly his exploration of grief within the Mayan Tzutujil tradition. In this worldview, grief is not a private burden to suppress or transcend. It is a necessary ritual act that honors what has been lost by praising it through expression. Prechtel writes that in the Mayan language, to grieve is to praise, and to praise is to keep the dead alive in spirit. Dickerson’s work engages this cycle not illustratively but structurally. Her use of layering becomes a form of visual mourning. Her surfaces, stitched and reworked, hold the residue of what is no longer visible. What remains is partial and unresolved, but intentionally so.
The residency program was structured around transparency. Rather than working in seclusion, Dickerson’s studio was situated inside the gallery itself, open to public view. Visitors were invited to observe her process and, at times, to engage directly. This format created an ongoing conversation between artist and audience, shifting the usual dynamics of exhibition-making. The result is a body of work that feels less like a statement and more like an accumulation of moments: private, witnessed, and shared.
Jurors Benito Huerta and Letitia Huckaby selected Dickerson for the residency based on the rigor and the emotional impact of her proposal. Both artists and curators with deep ties to the Dallas–Fort Worth art community, recognized a practice that speaks quietly but clearly, prioritizing emotional resonance over spectacle.
“The impact these residencies have on both the artists and our community is hard to put into words,” says Gallery of Dreams Director, Lauren Saba. “You live with someone’s workday for months. You share space, you see things evolve, and that kind of presence changes how we experience art. It keeps the environment alive and the conversations real.”
This is How We Remember does not aim to resolve grief. It offers no narrative of recovery. Instead, it treats remembering as an ongoing act, something closer to labor than revelation. In these works, memory is fragile, fragmented, and physical. It is also necessary and an experience that is universally familiar.
The opening reception will be held Saturday, April 26, from 6 to 9 PM. The artist will be present.”
Reception: April 26, 2025 | 6–9 pm
2100 Montgomery Street
Fort Worth, 76107 Texas
(817) 759-9475
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