David B. Smith Gallery returns to the Dallas Art Fair for its eighth year, presenting the work of Laura Ball, Justin Favela, Gustav Hamilton, and Linda Nguyen Lopez. Spanning a range of materials and techniques, including ceramic, watercolor, and piñata-style mobiles and paintings, the booth will blend the traditional lines of painting and sculpture. Works to be included will represent new paths in several of the artists’ practices.

Laura Ball’s watercolor works capture a delicacy and occasionally psychedelic-leaning vision that sets apart her depictions of endangered and extinct flora and fauna. Ball’s exquisite talent shines through her desert-inspired watercolors, compositionally and literally, with the use of ground mineral pigments.

Justin Favela further explores his unique blend of cultural commentary, unconventional painting, and piñata craft. The Dallas Art Fair marks the release of Untitled (Deconstructed Nacho Calder), Favela’s deconstructed nacho mobile—an open edition which captures the artist’s sense of humor infused with imagery that celebrates his hybrid cultural identity spanning Mexico, Central America, and the U.S. Southwest. Inspired by work he recently exhibited at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Favela’s artistic response to Alexander Calder captures his ability to synthesize inspiration with contemporary culture while reflecting on ideas of ownership and art history. Through the motif of nachos, a Tex-Mex invention, Favela subversively addresses stereotypes, ideas about authenticity, and craft, making complex topics palatable for the masses. Other wall-mounted piñata paintings reference 19th and 20th century Latin American still lifes by Masters, including Puerto Rican painter Francisco Oller, drawing a connection between geographically specific agricultural output via fruit production and colonial conquest.

Gustav Hamilton continues to innovate in his studio. Highly skilled in ceramic traditions, Hamilton has extended his glazing skills to painterly heights, where his often surreal compositions capture personal and pop culture narratives and daily musings. In the booth, works feature flat ceramic “canvases” with occasional three-dimensional outcroppings, complete with the introduction of the artist’s ceramic frames. One such piece depicts the first pot the artist ever made—a nod to Hamilton’s humble beginnings in the ceramic studio.

Linda Nguyen Lopez returns to Dallas with a variety of her enigmatic, abstract sculptural works. Lopez’s iconic gold luster and pigmented ombré porcelain furries, created in a new wall-mounting format, will debut in Dallas. A selection of Mini Huskies in the booth features freckled and iridescent glaze finishes. Lastly, a new stoneware Sunset Afterglow furry features Nerikomi striping, a ceramic inlay process that creates layered patterns by stacking and slicing different colors of clay. Ranging in scale, color, and surface treatment, her works teem with cascading layers of finger-like lobed forms that indicate movement, gesture, and personality while inspiring childlike curiosity.