Buckhead Art & Company Finds a Bigger Home, and a Bigger Mission
Karimah McFarlane, a Howard University graduate and former head of market human resources at Google's Southeast region, has opened the largest African American female-owned gallery in the Southeast, Buckhead Art & Company, which represents 30 artists from diverse backgrounds and backgrounds and has a foundation arm to support artists' professional development. The post Buckhead Art & Company Finds a Bigger Home, and a Bigger Mission appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.
Black News 
In a report released by Artnet in 2020, only two of the Art Dealers Association of America’s 176 member galleries were owned by African Americans, a figure that barely clears 1%. Karimah McFarlane is one of them, and she just tripled her footprint.
McFarlane, a Howard University graduate and former head of market human resources at Google’s Southeast region, opened Buckhead Art & Company in 2023. In January, the gallery relocated to its new address in Buckhead, nearly tripling its footprint from a 3,500-square-foot space on Buckhead Avenue to what is now, by McFarlane’s account, the largest African American female-owned gallery in the Southeast.
“I wanted to do something that made my heart sing,” McFarlane said. “I wanted to do something that brought people together.”
The timing of the expansion is deliberate. As federal diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives have come under sustained political pressure, McFarlane said she saw an opening and a responsibility.
“There were so many people that were displaced, particularly people who were doing DEI art, art that’s telling political stories, art that’s telling marginalized stories, and they didn’t really have a home,” she said.
“I don’t care about any of that. I just care about stories. I just care about people.”
McFarlane, who built her career in economics, political science and human resources before pivoting to the arts world, said the current climate has elevated the role of privately owned galleries as major museum institutions face funding pressures tied to what stories they are permitted to tell.
“There’s been a lot of censorship of art, a lot of removal of art,” she said. “Because I am the sole owner, I have no investors, I have no partners, the stories that I tell in my gallery are stories that are important to me.”
The new space represents about 30 artists and operates as a mission-based institution, has a foundation arm, the Buckhead Art and Company Foundation, through which a portion of each sale funds artists’ professional development, from framing costs to representation at fairs like Frieze and Art Basel.
Head curator Christos Perry, who started at the gallery in 2023 as an intern painting walls and worked his way up through social media management before taking the full-time curator role in January 2026, said the breadth of voices on display is intentional.
“We have all races, creeds, colors, backgrounds, and we have artists from all over, New York, LA, Texas, Ohio — even international artists,” Perry said. “We have artists from Nigeria, and we’re looking to do more countries soon.”
Perry, a 2015 SCAD Animation graduate, said his curatorial sensibility is rooted in his own life as a working artist. He looks for work that feeds a creator’s soul rather than the market.
“Authenticity is key,” he said. “I always tell artists: do not make art for galleries, do not make art for people. Make art for yourself.”
Among the artists Perry championed in the new space: Brittany Barr, who he called the “MVP of 2026” whose work integrates artificial intelligence and augmented reality, with QR codes embedded in each piece that, when scanned, unlock moving, talking visual narratives; Lynx Nguyen, whose “Pearly Gates” piece layers reclaimed paper and wood with scripture from the Bible transcribed in Vietnamese; and Brill Adium, whose piece “Osiris”, a work he described as being about rebuilding, reconstruction and rebirth in the face of imminent danger.
The gallery also represents Chanell Angelique, a Jamaica-born Atlanta-based artist who works in Black diaspora feminism; Travis Love, a Decatur native and 3D installation artist Zoe Antona, who, according to Perry, uses color to recreate the emotional weight of experiences from her own life.
McFarlane, who serves on the leadership councils of the Fernbank Museum and Workforce Fulton County and is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated, said the gallery’s animating principle is simple.
“Joy,” McFarlane said. “Every piece has some symbolism of triumph and hope.”
For new and seasoned collectors alike, McFarlane had a message.
“Be open to letting your heart dream and imagine,” she said. “Think about where your dollars are going and how you can change the life of someone and also enrich your own life at the same time.”
Buckhead Art & Company is located at 3063 Bolling Way in the heart of Buckhead Village District. The next opening, “Hot and Unbothered,” featuring Brittany Barr, is scheduled for April 30, 2026.
The post Buckhead Art & Company Finds a Bigger Home, and a Bigger Mission appeared first on The Atlanta Voice.
