The new gallery will be housed at 1625 W. Main St. (Photo by Jackie DiBartolomeo)
Richmond’s latest art gallery is set to launch next month in the Fan.
Main Projects, founded by Laura Martin Mills and Eric Thomas-Suwall, will slot in at a 3,800-square-foot space at 1625 W. Main St. The space formerly housed the Page Bond art gallery.
Mills is also the owner and president of Exhibition A, a website that sells original art and prints by well-known contemporary artists.
A Richmond native, Mills told BizSense she had never planned on having a physical gallery. Yet upon thinking of the vibrant arts scene in the city, she decided Richmond might be perfectly positioned for a new art space. Bond closed the doors on her West Main Street gallery space in February 2022 and moved to online-only sales. Ashley Millen acquired the gallery in 2023 and reopened it as the Bond Millen Gallery, now at 5601 Cary Street Rd.
“It seemed like there was a real opportunity for a space here that could bring more of what is happening in the global art world to Richmond, to a gallery space, while also lifting up the local talent here,” Mills said.
Mills teamed up to found Main Projects with Thomas-Suwall, an art collector who recently moved to Richmond with his husband and fellow art collector Rob Thomas-Suwall.
“He really shares a passion for access to contemporary art and is also very excited about Richmond as a potential [art] hub,” Mills said of Thomas-Suwall.
Eric Thomas-Suwall and Laura Martin Mills in the new Main Projects space. (Courtesy Laura Martin Mills)
The gallery’s flagship exhibition, Lovers, is a play on the state’s “Virginia is for Lovers” slogan. Mills described it as a reflection of both Richmond and the concept of love and its “myriad of forms.”
The exhibition will feature works that tackle human relationships in the digital age, motherhood, a sense of love for one’s homeland and more.
Lovers will feature artists like abstract painter Loie Hollowell, sculpturist and painter Diana Al-Hadid, anti-disciplinary artist LaRissa Rogers and others.
Also opening at the same time as Lovers is Friends, a small works exhibition that will spotlight new artists like New York-based graphite artist Nick Hobbs and Los Angeles-based painter Scout Zabinski.
Across the two exhibits, there are around 14 artists who are graduates of the VCU School of the Arts.
Lovers is co-curated with Elizabeth Dolan Wright. Dolan Wright, also a Richmond native and a longtime friend of Mills’, is one of two founders of the Common Wealth Public Art Fund, alongside husband J.D. Wright.
Established in 2023, CWPAF funds both temporary and permanent art installations across the state. CWPAF had its first project, “The Hole Truth” by local artist Mickael Broth, installed last year in front of the Valentine Museum on East Clay Street.
Upon Main Projects’ opening, CWPAF will be housed in the space.
“It’s such a great, exciting moment not only to feel like we’re getting traction and having roots, but also using the space to gather, to have conversations around what’s going on in the arts community, to think about future public arts projects and creating dialogues around collecting art,” Dolan Wright said.
There will be a space for some Exhibition A works and an art bookshop in the new gallery. The gallery will also be hosting some projects from CWPAF and programming around art.
Mills hopes when the gallery opens next month, it can be a place that brings more accessibility to the art community than is typical.
“It is important for me that this is not a space that feels pretentious, even if we are showing some of today’s most preeminent artists,” Mills said. “We want it to be a space for collectors at every level. If you have $200 to spend or $100,000 to spend, we just want to have a conversation around art and collecting.”
Main Projects’ Lovers and Friends will open to the public on Feb. 7 and will run through April 4. A portion of the proceeds from Lovers will benefit CWPAF.
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