Jo’Rie Tigerlily performs in a burlesque show at Gallery5 in 2021. (Photo by Jay Simple Photography)
When the arts and entertainment venue Gallery5 celebrates its 18th anniversary on April 7, featuring 18 original works of art and music the 200 W. Marshall St. venue is known for, it’ll mark a culmination. That evening, The Sweet Potatoes will end their yearlong residency as the house band, No BS! Brass will perform, and musician Prabir Mehta, a part of Gallery5 for 16 years, will play his last gig while serving as the nonprofit’s board chair.
Seeming to turn a lyric, he muses, “I’ll finish the set, turn in my key and thank everybody for putting up with me.”
His wry observation comes not only at the conclusion of his board service but also at the advent of a series of major changes for Gallery5, the latest in a long series of transformations on this site, which began in 1849 as a fire and police center.
Gallery5’s co-founders, artist Amanda Robinson and Parker Galore, events organizer and co-founder of RVA Magazine, launched the nonprofit in 2005. Gallery5 was an extension of an underground arts and music movement. “We’d clean and clear out somebody’s apartment, blast it with art, have DJs, there’d be beer, wine and coffee,” Galore says. “We’d collaborate with folks to create authentic, organic and fun creative experiences.”
When applied to Gallery5’s programming, this aesthetic was juxtaposed against the First Fridays Art Walk, outside the white gallery walls and what Galore describes as a “dealers-and-buyers vibe.”
“Amanda believed this could be an arts and cultural center, and she was 100% right,” Mehta says. “And she worked her butt off to make it happen.”
When Mehta and his board co-chair Katie McBride, wearing masks and standing at either side of the main room, turned out the lights in March 2020, they didn’t know that of all that work was in jeopardy.
“Given what we knew then, it didn’t feel momentous,” recalls McBride, who first put art on Gallery5’s walls in 2006 fresh out of art school. “We didn’t have a clue we’d be going dark for a year.”
They would eventually lay off all but two of Gallery5’s 11 staff members and undertake extraordinary measures for survival.
Musician Prabir Mehta will play his swan song as Gallery5 board chair in April. (Photo by Dave Parrish)
In 2019, Tom Robinson, owner of the firehouse (and Amanda’s father), gave notice to the board that he was seeking a buyer. Mehta had already served a board chair term, but then-chair Brian Phelps asked him to return. Mehta recalls, “I’d been away long enough that I thought, ‘OK, I’ll get involved, and we’ll get the building situated somehow.’”
Mehta returned to navigate through the 2019 transitions. He found the firehouse’s new owner, Bruce Vanderbilt, who grasped Gallery5’s importance, but change was forthcoming: Vanderbilt envisioned a restoration, which meant both greater expense for Gallery5 and a “Should I stay or should I go?” deliberation. Mehta ended up signing the lease of the largest contract agreement he’d ever seen.
“We understood that if Gallery5 intended to stay here, we needed to step up,” Mehta says. “The idea is to keep what we can and shed what we must.”
That meant relinquishing the upstairs gallery space and reconfiguring the lower spaces for exhibitions and presentations.
Since reopening, the space has hosted receptions, weddings, parties and community discussions about the future of Jackson Ward. Gallery5 rolls on with a full calendar of exhibitions and events.
“We are the people’s living room,” Mehta says.
