For its second Houston exhibition, Opera Gallery spotlights eight Texas artists
When Opera Gallery opened its Houston space this past spring, its inaugural presentation featured the kind of blue-chip names associated with the family-owned international gallery: Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Alexander Calder, Yayoi Kusama, Fernando Botero and Kehinde Wiley.
For its next act, the gallery is looking closer to home.
Opening September 18 and on view through October 8, 2026, Texas Contemporary brings together eight artists with strong connections to the state: Preston Douglas Boyer, Eric DePan, Mark Flood, Bradley Kerl, Virginia L. Montgomery, Reynier Leyva Novo, Rick Lowe, and Lovie Olivia. Their practices span painting, sculpture, glass, installation, moving images and conceptual work, exploring identity, mythology, ecology, memory and community.
Texas Contemporary offers a multifaceted view of contemporary art being created in and around Houston. Lowe, a MacArthur Fellow and founder of Project Row Houses, has transformed ideas about how art can shape communities. Olivia’s richly layered works examine Black identity, ancestry and mythology. Montgomery draws upon the ecology of East Texas, while Leyva Novo transforms dust collected from culturally significant sites, including the Astrodome, into meditations on history and place. Flood, Boyer, Kerl and DePan bring distinctive approaches to painting, multidisciplinary practice and glass.
For Houstonian Kara Przybyl McIver, deputy director of Opera Gallery Houston, the exhibition is an early expression of what the new gallery can contribute to the city.
“We have collectors in Hong Kong and Seoul, and when they think of American artists, it’s a very narrow picture,” Przybyl McIver says. “A collector in Hong Kong will open our newsletter and see work from Texas and see what these contemporary artists are working on. That’s powerful.”
Working with Director Gregory Lahmi and Opera Gallery’s international curatorial team, Przybyl McIver helped lead a selection process that included visits to far more studios than could ultimately be represented. The eight artists were chosen not only for the strength of their individual practices, but also for the conversations their work creates across media, generations and lived experiences.
“It’s hard to do a show that’s representative of the most diverse city in the country,” Przybyl McIver acknowledges.
Przybyl McIver brings an unusually varied background to the effort. After studying art history and interning at the Kimbell Art Museum, she began her career at Heritage Auctions, where she learned about everything from fine art and world coins to comics, wine and luxury collectibles. She later developed corporate art collections for clients including L’Oréal and Amazon through Indiewalls, returned to Heritage Auctions in Houston and even spent part of her career selling drywall and steel.
That combination of art-market knowledge, collector relationships and operational experience now informs her work at Opera Gallery. It also shapes her understanding of Texas collectors, many of whom acquire internationally recognized artists while remaining deeply committed to artists working within their own communities.
“Houston is part of everyone who lives here. It’s part of their story,” she says. “Having a Houston artist is a really unique and wonderful experience.”
The Houston team hopes to revisit Texas Contemporary biennially, with future editions reaching beyond Houston to artists throughout the state. More than a departure from Opera Gallery’s familiar international program, the exhibition is a potential beginning: an international gallery engaging with its new city while carrying the work created here into a much wider conversation.
TEXAS CONTEMPORARY
September 18–October 8, 2026
Opera Gallery Houston
www.operagallery.com
IMAGES: Courtesy of Opera Gallery