Gallerists Allison Ayers, David Castillo, and Jessica Silverman
Allison Ayers is a Partner and Director at Houston-based Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino. Before joining the gallery in 1997 as a marketing advisor, Allison worked in advertising and marketing with Ogilvy and Mather and Hermann Hospital. In 2000, she became partners with Maria Ines Sicardi and Carlos Bacino and a director of the gallery. Since then, she along with Maira Ines Sicardi, has spearheaded the gallery’s programming, partnering with area universities, independent curators, and international galleries to bring the most important modern and contemporary Latin American artists to the public. Those efforts have included lectures, book-signings, panel discussions and other activities. In 2012, alongside her partners, Allison coordinated the gallery’s transition to a custom-designed, 6,000-square-foot building, with two gallery spaces and a dedicated research center. In addition to her work with the gallery, Allison is also an active board member and advisor for numerous Houston and national arts organizations and non-profits. Those include the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; The University of Texas at Austin, College of Fine Arts Advisory and Director’s Council; The Art Dealers Association of America, New York, NY; the Aurora Picture Show. Allison graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Art History in 1991. In December 2018, she received a Master in Liberal Arts degree from St. Thomas University in Houston.
David Castillo holds degrees in History and Art History from Yale University and the Angelicum in Rome. Since 2000, he has dealt in important Latin American, European, and American secondary market works. Castillo has held positions at museums, including the Yale University Art Gallery’s American Decorative Arts curatorial department. He continues to assist private clients in building their collections in addition to managing David Castillo (gallery) and has lectured widely on various topics in art. David Castillo (gallery) opened in 2005 and in an ongoing manner from year to year, the gallery has been named hundreds of times in prominent publications. The gallery’s artists have helped shape the most current vision of contemporary art. Gallery artists have exhibited in nearly twenty recent major Biennials such as Sao Paulo, Kiev, Prospect, Montreal, Cuenca, Busan, and The Whitney Biennial. Among the gallery’s corporate clients are Deutsche Bank and UBS. Castillo has placed the work of gallery artists in museum collections, including major institutions such as the The Museum of Modern Art, NY; The Guggenheim, NY; The Studio Museum in Harlem; The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and many others. The gallery’s roster of artists routinely exhibits in major international institutions. David Castillo (gallery) has participated in art fairs in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Berlin, Mexico City, Miami, and Basel, including Frieze New York, Art Basel Miami Beach and The Armory Show. The gallery has produced more than 130 fine art exhibitions to date. David Castillo cultivates artists with a far-reaching national and international impact on cultural and critical spaces. These spaces include museums and other institutions, private collections, and, importantly, also discourses on art through art publications and media. The gallery’s artists are now defining the aesthetics and critical ideas of our time.
Jessica Silverman is the founder and CEO of a contemporary art gallery with an international reputation for curating compelling exhibitions, building artists’ careers, and collaborating with collectors who are keen on positive provenance. Her mission is to support artists whose relevance to contemporary culture is such that museums want to understand and embrace their work. For nine years, Silverman sat on the San Francisco Arts Commission where she oversaw the acquisition of public art and has, since then, advised property developers. Silverman recently opened a new gallery space at 621 Grant Avenue (corner of California) in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
Dexter Wimberly is an American curator, based in Japan, who has organized exhibitions in galleries and institutions around the world including A Fast, Moving Sky at The Third Line in Dubai, UAE; Derrick Adams: Sanctuary at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City; Kenneth Victor Young: Continuum at American University Museum in Washington, DC; Coffee, Rhum, Sugar & Gold: A Postcolonial Paradox at The Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, CA; and Vision & Spirit: African American Art | Works From The Bank Of America Collection at The Harvey B. Gantt Center in Charlotte, NC. Wimberly’s exhibitions have been reviewed and featured in publications including The New York Times and Artforum, and have received support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and The Kinkade Family Foundation. He is the co-founder of the financial literacy platforms Art World Conference and Art World Learning. Wimberly is also a Senior Critic at New York Academy of Art, and the founder and director of the Hayama Artist Residency in Japan.