THE INVISIBLE SKATE THEORY

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UPCOMING EVENTS

THE INVISIBLE SKATE THEORY

The theory that we can be, or already are, connected through skateboarding in a way we cannot see.

Mason Exhibitions Arlington
June 4 - August 16, 2025
Curated by Gato

Shaw-lloween Jam 2024
Photo taken by Katelyn King @katelyn.clix

Skateboarding has always existed on the fringe of cities, of systems, and tradition. The Invisible Skate Theory explores the community built in these edges, creating new spaces and paying homage to those that paved the way. Where they’ve long been left out yet continue to pay it forward. 

Rooted in the DMV’s growing skate scene and expanded through digital platforms like Instagram, this exhibition centers the often-unseen networks of connection, care, and co-creation that hold today’s skateboarding culture together.

It tells the story of how skaters without industry access have made their own maps finding each other through meetups, zines, pop-up events, and social media. It highlights pivotal moments like the 2024 arrival of Bolivia’s all-female skate collective, Imilla Skate, to Washington, D.C. brought by the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. That cross-cultural exchange continues to ripple across communities and coasts.

This exhibition also looks at the imbalance that persists: women are skating, but they are still underrepresented in leadership, industry, and visibility — especially outside of major hubs like NYC and LA. In the DMV, that gap is being closed not by big brands, but by organizers, artists, and everyday skaters doing the work on their own terms.

The Invisible Skate Theory poses the question of how this connection can expand further through the shared moments in this exhibition. While celebrating the behind-the-scenes labor, friendships, and the powerful force of finding a place to belong. It’s about movement, across cities and communities,  and what happens when those movements align.

Exhibiting Artists and Artworks

 

Kat “Gato” Salazar is an artist and skateboarder born and raised in Northern Virginia. While exhibiting is an important part of their journey, Kat’s long-term goal is to shape spaces that not only reflect artistic integrity but also amplify the voices of those who contribute to them. Their practice is not just about creating art—it’s about building sustainable, creative ecosystems where people can see themselves represented and inspired to participate. No matter the medium or the platform, Kat's passion remains in honoring the past while shaping the future of artistic expression.

Ava Bellomo (b. 2002) was born and raised in VA. She has made many good memories while skateboarding for the last few years. She enjoys drawing, painting, writing, and poetry. She also plays bass guitar and enjoys traveling.

Colletta “Coco” Paylor is a native Washingtonian from Southeast DC with experience in Technical Production, Fine Art, Gallery Curation, and Illustration. Her main focuses are to inspire Black Women and invoke thought through content creation. She is an Alumna of Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, obtaining a degree in Mass Communications, with a concentration in Broadcast Media.

Natalie Moreno (b. 2003) is a Bolivian American multidisciplinary artist who was born in Washington, DC and raised in Arlington, VA. Now based in Providence, RI. She earned her BFA in Sculpture with a concentration in Drawing from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2025. Moreno’s work explores the relationships between humans and animals, using animal motifs and portraiture as a means to investigate identity. Drawing from her experiences growing up as a girl in a predominantly male family and engaging with male-dominated cultures like skateboarding and graffiti, she infuses her work with humor that challenges conventional expectations of femininity. Her style is also shaped by a deep appreciation for cartoons, especially their exaggerated emotional language, which she uses to amplify feeling and personality in her work. Through this lens, she creates a distinctive space within her art, blending references and mediums to reflect her own perspective on belonging and self-expression.

Nnamdi Ihekwoaba is a Washington DC based skateboarder and filmmaker who's vividly documented the scene for over 10 years. He visually tells the story of his community and friendships through skate films. He is the founder of skate media brand STATUE.

Commissioned Motion Image featuring Elijah Williams, Rashad Murray, and ‘Halo’ by EraserGirl

Elijah Williams is a skateboarder, artist, musician, photographer, and videographer born and raised in Northern Virginia. Having spent time in between with family in Washington, DC (South East) and Prichard, AL. After spending time skating and hanging out in Shreveport, LA and Los Angeles, CA (Highland Park), it was a pivotal change in his life. Building connections with people from all walks of life through skateboarding, art and music. Elijah is the founder of 2 organizations, SMSC (Skate Mob Skate Crew) and HSM (Hella Stoops Mafia) a group of skateboarders and artist with similar interest, mindsets and ways of life. Elijah is very passionate about bringing people together for the greater good. 100% skateboarder to the core.

Rashad Murray is a skateboarder and tattoo artist  from Baltimore, MD. He started skateboarding when he was 12 years old and it has been one of the best experiences he had in life up to that point. He is a brain tumor survivor and hopes that his journey with skating can inspire the next generation of POC skateboarders. 

Nikolas Protopapas is an animator, filmmaker, and cartoonist who loves blending complex melancholy with toilet humor, inspired by everything from European comics to American cinema.

Isa Fraga-Abaza is an animator and artist from Washington, DC. Her work blends 2D animation and clay painting to offer a perspective through the female gaze. She aims for her art to serve as a mirror, encouraging viewers to confront their own biases and discomforts

 

Click to Watch

Bluesmessen, 2022
Isa Fraga-Abaza
Clay Painting

Click to Watch

Mr. President, 2025
Isa Fraga-Abaza and Nikolas Protopapas 
Digital Animation

 

Elena Salinas O'Toole was born and raised in DC and is Chilean, too. Some of her art reflects her passion for healing people's often damaged relationship with Nature. She also uses art to process and reflect her feelings, like an external, emotional digestive system. Elena skateboards, teaches, plays bass, surfs, and drinks lots of tea. She loves her community, family, and her dog, Thalia.

Ben Ashworth curates and builds ongoing community sourced public art projects that combine skateboarding, education, construction, music, media, and visual art as a socially-engaged platform.  As a process, he invites artists and community members to interactive, spontaneous sessions where their combined energies and diverse backgrounds enrich the developing art spaces.

Ben is co-founder of DC’s Green Skate Laboratory and one of the founding members of the now legendary DC Fight Club, an underground skate park, gallery, and performing arts venue.  In 2012 he produced Finding A Line for the DC temporary public art initiative 5x5 by building a skate/art park under a dicey DC freeway underpass and in 2015 co-developed another iteration of Finding A Line with the Kennedy Center. The Finding a Line project is now part of the DC Cultural Plan and the city’s multiyear – arts and culture forward – creative placemaking initiative, “Crossing the Street: Building DC’s Inclusive Future through Creative Placemaking”. 

Finding a Line is an ongoing, community sourced art project that takes the improvisational act at the core of skateboarding - finding a line through physical space - and applies it to the process of transforming community spaces. Welcome.

Green Skate Lab

In the spring of 2003, a group of friends and I decided to take the old philosophy of reimagining space and make it tangible. So we came together to reclaim an underused recreational space and turn it into the country's first green skate park. We reused old tires and space no one wanted to create something useable. Before it was over, it had become a collaborative design + build project emphasizing recycling, physics, and environmental science using professional, student, and community labor. I didn't know it yet, but it was the beginning of Finding A Line. 

 

Anthony Smallwood

Anthony Smallwood is a skateboarder, photographer, filmmaker, artist and social alchemist. Along with Ben Ashworth, Anthony founded Fight Club DC, a skate/art/music space and has been at the vanguard of the DMV pool scene, finding forlorn swimming pools and turning them into skate spots.

As a photographer and filmmaker, Anthony has worked with:
Juice Magazine
Patagonia
Le Parisian
National Geographic
Washington Post
Out Magazine
Washington City Paper
U.S. State Dept in Kuwait, Bahrain and Peru
National Portrait Gallery

A section of the FightClub skate ramp
On loan from Ben Ashworth

Fight Club D.C. Wardscapes: Ward 2, 2019
Produced By: Finding a Line, Broken Square, and Run Riot Films
Recording made at FightClub (FCDC)

In 2019, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival asked eight local creators to capture the acoustic and visual ecology of Washington, D.C.’s eight wards, each with its own history and character.

FightClub (FCDC) was an underground creative space located in Washington D.C.’s Blagden Alley between 2005 and 2010. Born out of necessity, artists who could not afford studio space individually but could collectively sessioned in close proximity—making, building, colliding, and embracing moments of serendipity. FCDC was a crucible for explosive cross-pollination between media as varied as fashion, sculpture, photography, film, live music, food, and, most importantly, PEOPLE. At the core of the compound was a constantly evolving skate-able sculpture and armature for a higher circuitry and thriving social architecture where we manifested space through our respective mediums. We vibrated, we resonated and created radical architecture by simply passing energy back and forth. If you experienced it, you know. Have you ever been experienced?

 

Kelly Towles

Kelly Towles is a Washington DC based artist. Kelly was born in the US in Ohio, then moved to Australia to grow up in the middle of the desert in Alice Springs. Kelly had kangaroos as pets and grew up watching BBC 1. This started the love affair with anime viewing shows such as Astro Boy, Danger Mouse and Space Battleship Yamato. He returned to the US after middle school. Kelly Graduated from UMD where he meet his amazing wife Virginia. They currently have 1 son and a saucy siberian husky. Kelly Towles has painted murals in Tokyo, Taipei, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and the Austin, to name a few. Studio work is always pushing forward with engraved tile as a canvas. Currently based in Washington DC, Kelly Towles is the Director and Curator of DC WALLS MURAL FESTIVAL.

 

Exhibit Bookshelf

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