Arnika Dawkins Gallery specializes in African American photography

Over the past 18 months significant Atlanta galleries such as Saltworks, Solomon Projects and now Young Blood have either closed their studios and transitioned exclusively to online sales, or they have gone out of business entirely.

In light of that, and in the face of an otherwise soft economy, what would make Arnika Dawkins decide that the time was right for her to enter the fine art sales arena? For the 50-year-old Dawkins, the answer was direct: need.

Though Atlanta still has a number of established galleries, none of them focus primarily on African American photographers such as Deborah Willis, the late Gordon Parks or local artist Sheila Pree Bright. And none of them routinely show images that deal with aspects of black life shot by photographers such as Builder Levy or Elliot Erwitt.

This is where Dawkins has staked her claim with her self-named gallery. In fact, her gallery just might be the only one in the state with such a mission. Instead of trying to wedge her way into the trendy Westside or Buckhead, she opened in a converted bungalow tucked away on Cascade Road, not far from the Southwest Arts Center. It’s a neighborhood known more as home to many of Atlanta’s civil rights’ elite such as former Ambassador Andrew Young and the Rev. Joseph Lowery than as a hub for galleries.

As she winds up her first year of operations, it’s still too early to tell whether her gambit was the right move. But as other galleries closed around her in 2012, Dawkins’ seemed to blossom with a couple of well-received shows, including Gordon Parks’ “The Segregation Portfolio,” which documented racial segregation in 1956 and is currently on view through Feb. 2. The other was “Dreaming Identities,” a show of 10 women photographers curated by Willis and including work by Pree Bright.

After a career as a manager with IBM and raising three children as a stay-at-home mother, Dawkins got her MFA in digital photography at the Savannah College of Art and Design before interning at Jackson Fine Art. She and her husband have long been avid collectors, members of a small but solid group of African American collectors in Atlanta. Although the city has a sizable black middle and upper class, it has yet to establish a culture of collecting fine art.

“We have work to do,” said Collette Hopkins during the opening of “Identities.” Hopkins is the former director of education and public programs for the National Black Arts Festival. “We have been so focused on the day to day, that we need to understand that the arts feeds us as well.”

Sam Mahone knows what Dawkins is up against. Through the 1980s and 1990s he ran galleries in the Virginia Highland and Sweet Auburn neighborhoods, but he was never able to develop the client base needed to sustain a fine art studio.

“As gallery owners, we could educate, curate and provide a wider range of artists, but then we had clients who couldn’t distinguish a serigraph, from a print, from a limited edition, from an original” Mahone said. “People would come to our openings, drink the wine, eat the cheese and go home without purchasing any art. One by one we had to close our doors. And I’m not sure the level of sophistication is there yet in Atlanta.”

That said, Mahone, who lives near Dawkins gallery, has been impressed by what he has seen. The work she shows should appeal to more than one targeted audience, he said.

For her part, Dawkins isn’t relying solely on the Atlanta market for support. Already she has presented two shows at galleries in Los Angeles and is cultivating a client base through the web and social media, a strategy many curators and owners are turning to for sustenance. Nevertheless Dawkins has big plans for her bungalow under the soaring oaks. Featuring the work of Parks’ has been the fulfillment of one long-held dream, she said.

“This is my passion,” she said.

Her challenge will be to find enough people who feel similarly and who are willing to invest in that dream.