Blow-Up Gallery featured in NT Daily (Thanks Blessing Wokocha)

Graduate turns blog into Dallas art gallery

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 15 Feb 2013   Staff Writer

Studio art senior Mark O'Neal Kimberlin is one of the UNT artists featured in the show "The New Frontiers" at the Blow-Up Gallery in Dallas. For his last semester, Kimberlin is changing focus from painting and drawing to print making. Photo by Christopher G. Lewis/Intern

Blessing Wokocha
Intern
@blessingwokocha
The Shops at Park Lane in Dallas now have a taste of Denton art in its outdoor shopping center. UNT alumni Scott Tucker opened the Blow-Up Gallery on Dec. 8, 2011 and now features student artwork. From sculptors to writers, this gallery covers many artistic media.
“It’s a fine arts gallery, specializing in emerging and established artists,” Tucker said. “I’ve always been an artist. I wanted to have a cool, bohemian art gallery.”
After being open for less than two months, Tucker said it has been very successful and sold roughly half of the paintings and sculptures at the first show in December.
Before the gallery was a storefront, Tucker started a site called the Blow-Up Blog while still attending UNT.
“I have a degree in literature and a lot of my friends that were writers were quite fantastic and needed an outlet,” Tucker said.
One of them was 2009 UNT grad, James Emerson, who he met in Spanish class. Emerson said Tucker would ask him to submit short stories for his website.
“Scott’s a selfless modern day martyr for the cause,” Emerson said. “His heart is in it.”
Even now, Tucker is implementing his love of writing into the Blow-Up Gallery.
“I get new submissions every day with the gallery,” Tucker said. “In less than a month, there will be more attention for the writers.”
After the funds had arrived for the gallery, Tucker and his family members, along with his band mates from his band “The Orange,” helped make the idea a possibility.
“We don’t have that super elitist art gallery that some galleries thrive from,” Tucker said. “We are very inclusive but the artist has to be producing art for a reason.”
After a month, Tucker was able to showcase studio art seniors Britni Martinez and Mark Kimberlin in his gallery.
“There were fliers around the art building,” Kimberlin said. “I noticed a call for new artists on Jan. 21, I actually contacted Scott and sent my work and my resume and he enjoyed my work. It felt pretty good being picked.”
It’s always been Tucker’s dream to operate a gallery and is now making UNT art students’ dreams come to life.
“Scott is really passionate about art,” Martinez said. “He’s so passionate that he gives opportunities to young artists who typically wouldn’t have the opportunity to be seen in Dallas. It’s cool that he cares.”