Claire Oliver Gallery Exhibited Three Puerto Rican Artists For The Atlanta Art Fair

Harlem-based Claire Oliver Gallery made its Atlanta Art Fair debut October 1–4 with the exhibition of three Puerto Rican artists: Erica Morales, Dave Ortiz and Carlos Betancourt. “Bringing Erica, Dave, and Carlos here feels like part of an overdue shift,” gallerist Claire Oliver tells Surface. Morales, a Bronx-born painter now based in Brooklyn, showed layered works on paper about family, friendship, and queer identity. Her figures nod to blended cultures, and her use of spray paint is an act of reclamation, turning a tool of the street into a way to spread pride and joy.

Ortiz came up in East New York’s graffiti scene, became Zoo York’s first employee, and founded the streetwear label Dave’s Quality Meat, collaborating with Nike, Adidas, Vans, and Converse before art and streetwear shared a stage. His paintings, with heavy outlines and fragmented figures borrowed from Greek antiquity, carried that history into the studio. Betancourt, born in San Juan and long a fixture of Miami’s art scene, offered the broadest perspective. His work across painting, photography, and installation returns to memory and the natural world, most recently in The Reef Star, an underwater sculpture for Miami’s ReefLine that traveled to Nice in 2025.