AUSTIN, TEXAS—With its thriving annual South by Southwest film, music, and interactive technology festivals, Austin, Texas is well-established as a destination for Indie Rock and Indie Film fanatics and 20-something hipster techie geeks. "Visual arts will catch up!" says Lora Reynolds. The ambitious 32 year old Reynolds, a Texas native who cut her teeth in the art world working for Anthony D'Offay in London and then New York (where she worked with such artists as Francesco Clemente and Robert Therrien) and then went to work for Matthew Marks, has opened up a gallery in Austin, where she will show emerging artists as well as blue-chip figures such as Therrien.

Her first show, "Andy Warhol Black and White," opened on March 19 and features 18 unique prints from The Warhol Foundation. Her next show will be work by London-based rising star Ewan Gibbs. In June, she opens an exhibition of works by Jim Torok, an artist whose amusingly self-referential comic strip-like drawings have been shown at Pierogi in Brooklyn. Guest curator of the Torok show at Reynolds's gallery is New York-based contemporary art collector Glenn Fuhrman, who was recently appointed the new chairman of the Tate American Acquisitions Committee. Fuhrman, a longtime friend of Reynolds, introduced her to Torok's work, which he has collected for years. He also, she says, has given her invaluable advice as she has been getting her gallery off the ground. Though he is not a financial backer of the gallery, Fuhrman provided "insights that a gallerist usually only sees from the opposite direction," Reynolds told Artinfo.com.

The gallery, located in downtown Austin, is a modest-sized 800 square feet, with 16 foot ceilings and a pedestrian area out front, complete with benches and trees. Though there are a few galleries in the neighborhood that show regional art, Reynolds's immediate neighbors are two architectural firms. "I specifically didn't want to be in a gallery district," she says. But she emphasizes that Austin has great potential for a thriving contemporary art scene; she is on the board of the non-profit space Art House at the Jones Center, which regularly hosts exhibitions and recently launched its first Art House Texas prize for Texas-based contemporary artists (the nominees for the $30,000 prize are Eileen Maxson, Robyn O'Neil, Robert A. Pruitt and Ludwig Schwarz.) Reynolds plans to hold lectures and other events in her gallery to tap into the potential audience. "There are a lot of young people in Austin who are into contemporary art, but there hasn't really been a gallery community to foster that interest and educate them."