The Rainbow Dancing in the Room highlights the transformation of light from its quieter state to a vibrant kaleidoscopic form. The pieces range from peaceful to energetic, offering an intimate and introspective experience. The exhibition features artists Julio del Rio, Willie Harris, Karen May, Shantae Robinson, and Tre’von Silva. Read More …
This exhibition is about transcendent forms. I looked through all of NIAD’s archives to find works that conveyed something beyond this world, something magical, something that emanates a powerful force. In some cases, geometries tap into universal formulae, in others, abstract gestural strokes become vessels for cosmic frequencies from another dimension, forms that are reduced and simplified into symbols tho speak the divine names of the essences invoke those they cannot contain. I was looking for works that felt timeless, and, perhaps, even, beyond culture.
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 …
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 …
When I look at these artworks, I see their existence and how they feel as living forces; some elements remain as independent organisms where forms play out their own life; unpredictably relating to and through the viewer’s experience. Read More …
About Touching Touching brings together a selection of works that expand, contract, distort, and modify. Through this they make some sense of the world. They are texturally complex, engaging, thoughtful, and irreverent. They open up like portals; through a variety of materials and approaches they offer us windows to an elsewhere. About Zachary Epcar Zachary Epcar (b. San Francisco) is an experimental filmmaker whose work has screened at festivals, museums, microcinemas, and DIY venues worldwide. He lives in Oakland, California where he is a member of Light Field, an artist-run film programming collective based in the Bay Area. View Zachary Read More …
These pieces are just a few from NIAD’s current cohort, that helps me embody the possibility of the tangible space I occupy each day as well as the infinite spaces just out of my reach or yet to be imagined. Read More …
About the Exhibition What is expressed in this small selection of works emanates from tender voices; better equipped than most to express the one quality humankind probably needs the most in this moment: love. They make me think of canaries in a coal mine and, their message, an invitation to embrace our humanity. May all of us be inspired by their courage, honesty and capacity to feel. About the organizer Germán Herrera Human being. I am an artist interested in spirituality, communication and art as an extension of consciousness. Student of A Course in Miracles, I live in California with Read More …
Our final NIAD Gift Guide of the season doubles as a sneak peek into what’s in store for you at Win Win 10, NIAD’s Annual Benefit Fundraiser coming up on Saturday March 5, 2022! Isabel X. Ortiz from NIAD’s fundraising team describes the NIAD artworks that inspired her Win Win 10 Sneak Preview collection… About the collection I curated this collection with all the game-lovers and risk-takers in mind. It’s for the artists who are pushing their own creative boundaries. It’s for the innovators who are thinking of their next passion project. It’s for the people who like to spice up their homes with Read More …
About the collection Gift-giving can be so tricky! It can be hard to know if someone has an item already, if it will be useful, or if it’s something that maybe you like instead of the recipient. When I choose a gift for someone, I try to focus on their interests or recent big events in their life – did they just move into a new home? Are they always dressed to the nines? Do they love sending videos about cute animals? I curated this shopping guide with those friends in mind, so whether you are buying a gift for your new Read More …
About the Exhibition For this exhibition for NIAD I didn’t want to overthink the process. I decided to begin by going through all the available art and to notice things that kind of jumped out at me. I viewed everything one time and then went back a second time to select artworks. As I viewed the first group of selections I tried to see connections between the works. I noticed that there seemed to be a theme in many of the works that I would describe as being of a narrative nature. I am talking about implied narratives, nothing really Read More …
About the Exhibition Memory can be buried deep in our mind. It emerges at a quiet moment, when looking through a window on a peaceful afternoon, or while mixing in a noisy crowd. Memory can come in colors, in detail, or totally abstract. Powerful, but impossible to describe in words.The selected works can be any part in our memories: those sweet, lonely, joyful, silly, bitter, innocent, or nonsensical moments. About the Organizer Born in Beijing, my understanding and sense on art come from the rich memories of the seemingly long past and my present life in lively everyday reality. My Read More …
About the exhibition We selected our favorite evocative works and put them into a virtual gallery. There was so much amazing work to choose from, but we believe that these works in particular speak for themselves. Lastly, we also think these works exhibited together speak to this moment in America and how art represents what we give our attention to. * Seleccionamos nuestras obras evocadoras favoritas y las pusimos en una galería virtual. Había tantas obras para elegir, pero creemos que estas obras en particular hablan por sí mismas. Por último, también creemos que estas obras expuestas Read More …
About the exhibition Viewers can learn much from the work of NIAD artists. Their work offers the viewer a recognition that life is often a jumble of color and form. Things arise, and often not in a linear or scientific manner. In reviewing the NIAD catalog, a religious/spiritual theme emerges. Based on the conception of the beginning of the world found in the Old Testament book of Genesis, out of a chaos a world is born. Let there be light. About the organizer Jay Youngdahl is an artist, writer, and activist. For the past few decades he has made his Read More …
About the exhibition Ravel is an exhibition of two and three dimensional work that attracts with loose references leaving the mind to give up meaning in the pursuit of possibility. Recommended listening to accompany the viewing of the exhibition: Maurice Ravel’s Boléro. About the organizer Danny Volk received a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Art from the University of Chicago (Chicago, IL) and a Bachelor of Arts in Theater Studies from Kent State University (Kent, OH). His recent exhibitions, screenings and performances include Mrs. Lincoln, What Did You Think of the Play at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (Milwaukee, WI), The News Gallery at SPACES (Cleveland, OH), The Read More …
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 …
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 …
View the show. About the exhibition In her essay “Joy,” Zadie Smith divulges that a source of her daily pleasure in life is, very simply, “other people’s faces.” Beyond the surface of appearance, Smith alludes to the private lives, anxieties, triumphs, and toils she imagines in others—strangers she passes on the street or sits beside on the bus, for instance. Her projections are fictions, but they are a continual exercise in empathy, imagination, and compassion nonetheless. I think of Smith’s essay often, passing days in the anonymity and excitement that life lived among others, in public space, can shape. Read More …
With the pandemic, humanity has briefly taken a step back from much of the wanton damage we do to our planet everyday. Jesus Herrera has crafted a timely show that is a tribute — and a reminder of the destruction we must stop — to our mother, the earth. View the show.
Halisi Noel-Johnson is a printmaker and textile artist creating work at NIAD Art Center. For this online exhibition she paired her own works with those by her peers to tell a story about personal inspiration and symbols of power. View her exhibition here.