Visual Voices

Dayton Live partners with Shango: Center for the Study of African American Art and Culture, and Willis “Bing” Davis, exhibit curator and director of EbonNia Gallery, to display an exhibit of art by local African American artists inside the Schuster Center.

The 2022 Dayton Skyscrapers exhibit featured the work of African American visual artists from the Miami Valley. The Dayton Skyscrapers art project is not a celebration of Dayton’s tall buildings or our skyline. Dayton Skyscrapers is a metaphor for those local and regional African Americans who stand tall in our minds and hearts for what they have achieved in their field and their contributions to the quality of life of Dayton and the Miami Valley Region. The Visual Voices 2022 team of Dayton and Miami Valley African American visual artists selected a core of high-achieving African Americans as Dayton Skyscrapers.

The Dayton Skyscrapers art project is a unique and innovative art, culture and community project created in collaboration with the Dayton Public Schools.


The Dayton Skyscrapers project is designed to:

• Identify and celebrate local and regional African Americans who have excelled in their field.
• Provide positive role models for urban youth.
• Celebrate local and regional African American visual artists.
• Enhance the general community’s appreciation of African American contributions to the Dayton Miami Valley Region.

Dayton Live has been a strong supporter and collaborator with the Shango Center and EbonNia Gallery in bringing the Visual Voices projects to the broader Dayton Community via exhibits and programs in the Benjamin & Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center.


The 2022 Visual Voices Dayton Skyscrapers art project was funded in part by:

• AES Foundation
• Dayton Public Schools Skyscraper Project
• Virginia W. Kettering Foundation
• Dorothy Lane Market Foundation
• ZIKS Family Pharmacy
• Keller Boonshoft Fund of the Marin Community Foundation
• Dayton Live

2022 exhibiting artists were:

The 2022 exhibit reflected the broad and diverse career fields of African Americans in the Dayton and Miami Valley region. They were:

If you’d like more information about any of the art, or would like to learn how you can make a piece of artwork part of your collection, please contact the EbonNia Gallery.