Dare Arts Center

The 48th Annual Frank Stick Memorial Art Show will open in our Courtroom Gallery on Friday, February 6, 2026, at 6:00 pm. The opening reception is free and open to everyone. After the opening, the show will be open for viewing during normal gallery hours, February 7-28, 2026.

About The Frank Stick Memorial Art Show
The annual show is held in memory of Outer Banks preservationist and artist Frank Stick, who was instrumental in having miles of the Cape Hatteras Seashore designated as the first National Seashore. The Frank Stick Memorial Art Show is the longest-running visual arts exhibit in Dare County. The exhibit goes on display every winter at Dare Arts. In 2017, the show was held at the Dare Arts Gallery for the first time since its inception.

Artists are encouraged to enter their most innovative work for the possibility of winning the distinctive Eure Best in Show Award, which is an ode to Glenn and Pat Eure for their many years of hosting the Frank Stick Memorial Art Show at Ghost Fleet Gallery.

The opening of Heidi Peelen Brooks’ exhibit, don’t worry! Her amazing paintings are up in our Vault Gallery through Saturday, February 6 - 28.  Venus in Polyester reimagines the goddess of love within a world of synthetic fabrics, broken appliances, and carefully curated vacations. Through saturated ballpoint-and-acrylic scenes, the series follows middle-class women from girlhood to old age as they lounge, pose, and persevere with humor and grace—doing farm chores in lipstick and house shoes, wrapped in polyester that feels both like armor and aspiration. Blending playful yet pointed commentary on femininity and leisure, the works incorporate rhinestones, buttons, and glitter, blurring the line between fine art and craft while celebrating—and gently critiquing—the beauty and absurdity of domestic life.