Installation photo credit: Dawn Blackman

VIP Preview: January 21, 2026
Public Days: January 22 – 25, 2026

Vielmetter Los Angeles is excited to announce our participation in the 2026 FOG Design + Art fair taking place January 21st through the 25th at the Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture in San Francisco, CA.

Our two-person presentation will feature new works by artists April Bey and Gio Swaby. Bey and Swaby, both from the Bahamas and based in Los Angeles and Toronto, respectively, integrate textiles into vibrant figurative works that celebrate Blackness, femininity, and bold explorations of pattern and color.

April Bey (b. 1987) grew up in the Bahamas (New Providence) and now resides and works in Los Angeles as a visual artist and art educator. She is currently a tenured professor at Glendale College.

Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at The Nevada Museum of Art, Reno NV; The Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA; The California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA, among others. She has been included in group exhibitions at The Modern Forth Worth, Fort Worth, TX; The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ; Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA; The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas, Nassau, Bahamas, among others. Her work is in the public collections of California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk, CT; Escalette Collection, Chapman University, Orange, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, Nassau, The Bahamas; Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA; Fullerton College Art Gallery, Fullerton, CA, among others.

Gio Swaby (b. 1991) was born and raised in the Bahamas and is currently based in Toronto, Canada.

Swaby work was featured in her first solo museum exhibition in 2023, Gio Swaby: Fresh Up, at the Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition, co-organized by Katherine Pill, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg and Melinda Watt, Chair and Christa C. Mayer Thurman Curator of Textiles, Art Institute of Chicago, traveled to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA. Swaby’s work has been included in group exhibitions at Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL; Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN; Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN; African American Museum, Philadelphia, PA; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN;  Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY; Kemper Museum, Kansas City, MO; Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA; National Art Gallery of The Bahamas, Nassau, Bahamas; Kunsthaus Alte Mühle, Schmallenberg, Germany; among others. Swaby’s work is included in collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Peabody Essex Museum; the Speed Art Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago; the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; among others.