Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kiki Somerville. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Kiki, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I became a lawyer because I loved helping people solve their problems, but I wasn’t very happy working in a firm and only benefiting large companies.

In 2009, a friend of mine from Miami came up to New York, attended some of my events, and asked me to produce one for them where they could display and sell their art work. That’s when I started thinking about how do artists make a living from their work? What do artists do when they don’t have the support of a gallery, connections or business skills?

I saw the traditional gatekeeping of the art world as an opportunity to create something new and different and inclusive. I founded TFA in 2011, we did our first TFAPOPUP exhibition in 2014 and had 7,000 people come to our first event.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

As I mentioned, I am actually a lawyer and event producer by training. I have always had a passion for supporting artists. In observing galleries and art events across the U.S. and the world, I quickly discovered that today’s artists were lacking the business knowledge to get their work seen, shared, and sold, and that I could push back against art world gatekeepers by teaching artists how to connect and tell their stories.

In 2009, I produced my first art exhibition “Spirits of Haiti” with renowned artist Jude Papaloko “Thegenius.” In 2011, I created The Fearless Artist and began providing business services to major artists, writers and media personalities like Kerry Lutz, Danny Simmons, David Sena and Kenji Jasper. In 2014, we produced the first TFAPOPUP (The Fearless Artist Pop Up Gallery) to serve emerging and undiscovered contemporary artists who wanted access to exhibit during Art Basel Miami/Miami Art Week. In 2021, the TFA team launched The Fearless Artist Young Curators Program, which teaches artists and creatives the business side of the art world and how to produce a successful event.

The Fearless Artist (TFA) was born as a community for knowledge and skill-building, making connections, and opportunities for diverse, mission-driven artists.

The thing I’m most proud of is that since its founding in 2011, TFA has expanded to produce widely acclaimed popup galleries (TFAPOPUP) during Art Basel Miami (with over 12,000 visitors in 2019), while serving 300+ artists and hundreds of thousands of fans in-person and at Thefearlessartist.com by providing educational programs for young artists, and private coaching on the art business with clients. For TFA’s first TFAPOPUP in New York in June 2022, Olay Body was the title sponsor and committed $100,000 in scholarship funding to The Fearless Artist Young Curators Program. Additionally we received venture capital funding from Brown Venture Group. Less than 1% of all venture funding goes to Black women entrepreneurs, so I am very proud of that accomplishment.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson that I had to unlearn was that taking advice from people doesn’t always lead you to your destiny.

Being fearless means, having the courage to listen to your own gut, investing in discovering your authentic self, and being prepared to separate yourself from the crowd if you have to.

When I started The Fearless Artist, I wasn’t from the “art world”. As an entrepreneur, I felt art was subjective and the people should decide what they like, and that artists that were brave should have a chance to invest in themselves. I didn’t necessarily believe galleries should have all the control and manage the access to the audience without working with the artist.

When we conceived the idea of the first TFAPOPUP and allowed artists to buy wall space for a fraction of what any other art fair costs, people in the New York art scene said the “art world” wouldn’t like it!

That made me want to do it even more!

We told all the artists we knew and the word spread across the country about this opportunity to be in a gallery in the heart of Wynwood, Miami during Art Basel, curate your own space, and sell your work as an independent artist, small gallery, or collective.

People jumped at the chance and bought all the wall spaces very quickly. Artists that referred their friends got commission.

So I am happy that people told me not to do it and I believed in my instincts and did it anyway!

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

There is a lack of transparency in the art world that leads to the continuation of problematic approaches to artists and the silencing of voices.

The academic, institutional, and commercial art ecosystems were designed at a time where all people were not given a chance to participate equally in society. So there are legacies in all these spaces that new voices can’t compete with in terms of scale and access to resources. We need more alternatives that welcome people in, educate and empower them and normalizing leadership from historically underrepresented communities.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thefearlessartist.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kiki_somerville/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kiki-somerville/

Image Credits
Photographs courtesy of The Fearless Artist