Jonathan Valdivias

an exhibition flyer with the words "outside" in slanted white sans serif capital font and "forces" in the same font in bright pink, on an abstract background

Opening Reception // “Outside Forces” at Art Enables

Featured artists include individuals who are emerging and self-taught, are from traditionally underrepresented communities, and those with disabilities. All have paved their own way in the formation of their work, representing personal experiences and interests in individual styles developed outside the conventions of mainstream art education and culture.  

This exhibition began in 2006 as a way for DC-area groups working with self-taught artists to exhibit together. Over the last 18 years, the exhibition’s success has seen it grow to feature artists from across the nation alongside our resident artists. With a selection of affordable work in a wide array of styles, the show continues to be an excellent introduction to outsider art for those looking to start their own collection.  Read More …

a graphic with "art mode" spelled in dark blocky letters

NIAD at Blu Dot // Art Mode Launch Event

Join us to celebrate the launch of Art Mode: a collection of incredible work from artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Blu Dot partnered with local nonprofit NIAD Art Center, as well as Brooklyn’s LAND Gallery and Austin’s SAGE Studio to bring you 16 unique pieces with all profits going back to the studios. Come check out the art, meet the inspiring artists behind them and enter for your chance to win one of the art prints. Light bites and drinks provided. Read More …

painting of famous painters titled "Normal is Boring"

“Rainbow Cat Picnic” organized by Cynthia Ona Innis

About the Exhibition The title of this exhibition comes from a piece included in the show, Dorian Reid’s Rainbow Cat Picnic.  In Rainbow Cat Picnic, numerous cats are joyously picnic-ing under a big colorful rainbow in what looks to be a very festive occasion.  There may be rain but that rainbow safely covers the cats and their food bowls. The sun is just coming out and those cats are really having a good time! The mixed media works in this show are my Rainbow Cat Picnic–20+ pieces representing an inspiring and colorful excursion to a place of creative nourishment and a celebration as a Read More …

an assortment of fruit - grapes, bananas, cherries, limes - drawn with thick black outlines.

NIAD Gallery Exhibition // “What’s Cookin?!,” organized by Terri Moore and the Cooking Corner class

This show is all about comfort text: resilience in everyday words, writing and reading. Expression can also be wordless, the use of line and color as new vocabulary, pushing a thought out onto a surface, making marks and continuously trying to communicate with the world.

We tell stories to sustain ourselves and find each other. These messages embedded in art become an emotional telegram– a signal flare with a flame of memory trailing behind it. “Feeling Language” is about books, lists, slogans, language, gesture, touch and the trust given in sharing. Read More …

an assortment of fruit - grapes, bananas, cherries, limes - drawn with thick black outlines.

NIAD Main Gallery Exhibition // “What’s Cookin?!”

In the exhibition What’s Cookin?!, you will see food, art and creativity from various NIAD artists. So feel free to pull up a chair in your mind, take a seat at our dinner table, and see what’s cookin’! Cooking Corner is a place where artists can share artwork, make art, share food ideas and recipes, and interests they have in cooking, and also cook along with me from the comfort and safety of their own homes. Since we have returned to being on site, Cooking Corner has made its way back to the 23rd Street NIAD studio, where myself and a group of artists meet weekly, and come up with recipes to prepare, prep, cook and serve to the NIAD community. Read More …

A portrait of a cat with red fur and an amused expression.

NIAD Online Exhibition // “I Belong To Myself” organized by Maria Seda-Reeder

Being an artist who helps bring new, radical ideas into the world is neither an easy nor simple task. So it takes a certain, special kind of magic—charisma, self-belief, instinct—to move through the world going against the grain, as innovative artists so often do. I’m honored to have the chance to put forth this small sampling of artists from NIAD, an organization that likewise is working at the forefront of contemporary art.  Read More …

NIAD Online Exhibition // “I Wanna See All My Friends At Once” organized by Cone Shaped Top

Looking through works from the roster of NIAD artists, ideas around bodies coming together under the unifying force of music for release, freedom, self-expression and camaraderie began to emerge. Balloons, dancing, fearless fashion, music, friendship, colorful people and spaces filled with lights, projections and disco balls; all themes that form the ethos of our space. These works highlight motifs and sentiments that conjure the feeling of bliss from celebrating life with chosen families through music. Read More …

NIAD Online Exhibition // “Can’t Be Shook” selected by Alex Gartelmann

Posted onAuthorNIAD Art Center

About the exhibition The invitation to curate this exhibition initially felt like an insurmountable task. The amount of work I felt thrilled by on a first look at the archive seemed impossible to winnow down. I immediately knew I didn’t want to use some contrived academic framework for decision making. I wanted to create an exhibition of works that I just couldn’t shake, a group of things that struck that deep internal chord which has no words or explanation. I decided that I would make an initial large list of things I was drawn to, and then revisit those lists repeatedly over several weeks, seeing what remained stuck in Read More …

NIAD Online Exhibition // “Auctionauts”

Posted onAuthorNIAD Art Center

Auctions are unpredictable animals: they can get noisy, tense, wildly out of control. Add a dash of pandemic and a helping of Zoom, and you never quite know what you’re going to get. Lucky for you, there is a small grouping of highly collectible artworks from last weekend’s event that refused to be tamed by the auction format. These newly untethered works are collected in Auctionauts, and we’re making them available in a “buy it now” arrangement. (Endless thanks to the donating artists!) Browse at your leisure (no bidding necessary), but don’t wait too long—when they’re gone, they’re gone. Artists Read More …

an inky blue wash dilutes to a pale blue, shrouding a brilliantly red figure that gazes intensely at the viewer. The face of the figure is the same red as the body, which has no visible characteristics. Two blue eyes, a blue nose, an open red oval for a mouth. A bluish-green half-circle shape crowned with red dots is attached to the figure's cheek.

Online Exhibition: I See What You’re Feeling, organized by Daniel Krakauer

Posted onAuthorNIAD Art Center

About the exhibition   Have you ever met somebody whose emotions are so big they seem to fill up a room? These wonderful drawings remind me of those passionate people. Each subject fills their piece of paper with their emotions. Whether joyful, calm or anxious, their feelings permeate their faces, their bodies and even the spaces around them. Even when the backgrounds are empty, they are empty in ways that amplify the subjects’ inner states.  I don’t know these artists, so I can’t ask what they meant to say. But it’s art, so we each get to make up whatever Read More …

a face emerges from a canvas of exuberant brushstrokes - a cornflower blue muzzle, a lavender nose, yellow brows, skin in brown and magenta shades, surrounded by an aura of more magenta paint mixed with lavender and cornflower blue. the canvas is vertically oriented. the face is smiling.

Online Exhibition: 177 years, organized by Julia Goodman and Michael Hall

Posted onAuthorNIAD Art Center

About the exhibition   177 Years is a group show including multiple works by Lisa Blevens, Eddie Braught, Sylvia Fragoso, Peter Harris, Tre’von Silva, Jonathan Valdivias, Christian Vassell and Susan Wise. Cumulatively the artists have spent 177 years making art in the NIAD studio working with paint, textiles, ceramics and sound. Julia and Michael co-curated this show from home while their toddler was sleeping.  About the organizers Julia Goodman is known for her low and high relief handmade paper sculptures. Goodman’s innovative approach to papermaking holds strong throughlines with the history of rag paper as she gathers, sorts, tears, soaks and pulps fibers, transforming discarded bedsheets and Read More …

Special Exhibition: SFMOMA x NIAD MiNi Mural Gallery

Posted onAuthorNIAD Art Center

About the gallery The NIAD MiNi Gallery is a collection of work that showcases the diversity of NIAD’s studio artists in material and form, featuring the artists who contributed to the SFMOMA MiNi Mural Project. About the event From the SFMOMA website: In 1940, more than sixty-five artists made their creative processes public when they participated in Art in Action, an exhibition of live art making conceived by architect Timothy L. Pfleuger as part of the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island. Among these artists was Diego Rivera, who during this time painted the mural Pan American Unity, which Read More …

Untitled (D8221), Samantha Kershnar.

Online Exhibition: Serotonin Ping, selected by Zoë Taleporos

Posted onAuthorNIAD Art Center

About the exhibition   Serotonin Ping is a collection of images that aspire to elicit feelings of well-being, stability, and happiness. Pets, food, inside jokes, oddities, simple statements – these are the things that cheer me up. Hopefully this show makes someone else crack a smile. About the selector Zoë Taleporos is a curator, arts administrator, and writer based in Oakland. She currently works as a Public Art Project Manager at the San Francisco Arts Commission where she is involved in commissioning a wide range of artworks for public spaces.

NIAD artists in our courtyard working on sketches for SFMOMA's Mini Mural Festival. Top row: Luis Estrada, Esmeralda Silva, Miguel Chacon. Circle: Jonathan Valdivias. Bottom row: Julio Del Rio, Deatra Colbert, Christian Vassell's sketches.

Online Event: SFMOMA Mini Mural Festival Kickoff – June 24

Posted onAuthorNIAD Art Center

NIAD is one of three organizations commissioned by SFMOMA to contribute murals to its Mini Mural Festival this summer. During this special online kickoff event, Acción Latina, NIAD, and SOMA Pilipinas will discuss our organizations’ work and missions. Then, the artists will reveal their mural designs for the first time. Don’t miss this special preview! SFMOMA Mini Mural Festival Kickoff (online)Thursday, June 24th, 5:30 PM PTRSVP today! Image: NIAD artists in our courtyard working on sketches for SFMOMA’s Mini Mural Festival. Top row: Luis Estrada, Esmeralda Silva, Miguel Chacon. Circle: Jonathan Valdivias. Bottom row: Julio Del Rio, Deatra Colbert, Christian Vassell’s sketches.