And the Winners Are

An array of diverse Dallas artists scoop up Texas Medal of Arts honors

The 2017 honorees for the biennial Texas Medal of Arts Awards have been announced, and it's a pretty starry list. Recognizing "amazing Texans who have made powerful contributions to the arts here at home and around the world," the awards are given by the Texas Cultural Trust and will be held in Austin February 21-22.

This year's winners are a diverse bunch of actors, musicians, dancers, artists, writers, architects, reporters, and philanthropists. They will all be celebrated at the state's most prestigious arts gala, held for the first time at Texas Performing Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. The slated events include a Stars of Texas brunch at the governor’s mansion, an awards show with special musical performances, and a gala dinner.

Notable Dallas winners include architect Frank Welch, whose Texas Modern style is found throughout the city, and Dallas Black Dance Theatre for its educational initiatives.

And though Leo Villareal is linked to El Paso, where he partially grew up, the artist is famously represented in Dallas with the Buckyball lighted sculpture that holds court in NorthPark Center's CenterPark Garden.

Other recognizable names include musicians Kris Kristofferson and Kenny Rogers; Rhodes Scholar writer John Phillip Santos; and musical theater actress Renée Elise Goldsberry, who won a 2016 Tony Award for her role in Hamilton.

"People from all over Texas and from all artistic disciplines are honored and celebrated as we raise awareness about how vital the arts are to our state’s economy and our children’s education," says Texas Cultural Trust executive director Jennifer Ransom Rice in a release. "We hope for continuing and expanding support for the arts for future generations to appreciate, embrace, and enjoy."

The complete list is as follows:

Corporate Patron: John Paul & Eloise DeJoria, Paul Mitchell/Patrón Tequila, Austin
Multimedia: Kris Kristofferson, Brownsville
Individual Arts Patron: Lynn Wyatt, Houston
Dance: Lauren Anderson, Houston
Music: Yolanda Adams, Houston
Arts Education: Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Dallas
Theater: Renée Elise Goldsberry, Houston
Foundation Patron: The Tobin Endowment, San Antonio
Visual Art: Leo Villareal, El Paso
Architecture: Frank Welch, Dallas
Literary: John Phillip Santos, San Antonio
Journalism: Scott Pelley, San Antonio
Lifetime Achievement: Kenny Rogers, Houston

To date, the Texas Medal of Arts Awards has presented 99 medals to 105 Texas legends and luminaries who have achieved greatness through their creative talents, as well as those whose generosity has opened doors to artistic opportunity for Texans of all ages. Past honorees have included Jamie Foxx, Eva Longoria, ZZ Top, Willie Nelson, Dan Rather, Neiman Marcus, Margaret McDermott, Tommy Lee Jones, Debbie Allen, Walter Cronkite, Lake Flato Architects, the Nasher Foundation, Sandra Cisneros, Clint Black, and Lyle Lovett, among others.

Dallas Black Dance Theatre gets the nod for arts education.

Dallas Black Dance Theatre presents Spring Celebration

Photo courtesy of Dallas Black Dance Theatre

Dallas Black Dance Theatre gets the nod for arts education.

awards celebrities

Mural News

Netflix House will debut in Dallas with murals from acclaimed artist

Netflix House

Jeremy Biggers at Netflix House

A long-awaited immersive venue is opening in Dallas, and it will debut with local art on its walls: Netflix House, a year-round exhibit revolving around Netflix shows and movies, will open at Galleria Dallas on December 11, with two murals from award-winning Dallas multi-medium artist Jeremy Biggers.

Netflix House is an immersive dive complete with merchandise store, film house, arcade, and restaurant-bar. When it opens, Dallas will be the second location in the U.S., following Philadelphia, where it debuted in November 2025, also with murals from a local artist.

A graduate of Booker T. Washington High School for Performing and Visual Arts, Biggers is a renowned artist whose murals can be found spashed on walls across Dallas. Many, such as the Selena portrait on the wall outside Top Ten Records at 306 S. Bishop Ave., have become local landmarks.

He's a logical choice, having worked with a number of corporations including Nike, Adidas, the Dallas Mavericks, and IBM, for whom he created the "THINK" mural in their Dallas corporate office. His works have also been exhibited nationally, including a 2024 solo exhibition "be safe out there bro" at Band of Vices, a gallery in Los Angeles.

"Being chosen to be the artist to paint this mural, it would have been a disservice to myself, as well as the art scene in the city, not to try to infuse myself into it," he says.

$\u200bJeremy Biggers at Netflix House$ Jeremy Biggers at Netflix HouseNetflix House

Biggers did two murals featuring his interpretation of Netflix figures including the Squid Game Young-hee doll, characters from KPop Demon Hunters and megahit series Stranger Things, plus Pandy and DJ Catnip, the best friends in the interactive series Gabby’s Dollhouse.

Both murals are intensely colored works that incorporate Biggers' signature motif: a grid of polka dots spread across the image.

One is on the exterior of Netflix House, at the parking entrance, a colorful collage of characters, measuring 38 feet x 50 feet — the tallest mural Biggers has tackled. He painted it with aerosol; it took him two months to complete.
The other is on the interior, on the mall side entrance of Netflix House, measuring 57 feet x 12 feet — a study in moody blacks and blues, with accents of neon-red that give it a 3D effect.

“I'm trying to tell the story of Netflix, and the story of where Netflix has been historically, where Netflix is headed in the future, and then also infusing my own narrative and my own language visually into that story,” he says.

“They could have opened this anywhere, so for Dallas to be one of the very first locations — that’s a testament to us as a market, as consumers of arts and consumers in general," he says.

Jeremy Biggers at Netflix HouseNetflix House

galleries openings