QUEER: Celebrating Work by LGBTQIA Artists

QUEER: Celebrating Work by LGBTQIA Artists opens Friday, June 3 with an Opening Reception from 5 to 8pm during the Ypsilanti First Friday and Pride Month festivities. We hope you will join us for the Opening Reception at The Gallery on June 3rd with the featured artists – it will include three live performances. The exhibition will run through July 24, 2022.

This celebration of work is a clear example of how varied the work among our local LGBTQIA community is, and how unaware we are of the multitude of creative processes taking place daily. Whether it is handwritten in journals, painted on canvas, sewn into fabric, typed into Notes app, sung into a microphone or whispered into each other’s ears, our community of artists are out here, ready to put their work into the world, and we are here for it.

10% of artwork sales during the Opening Reception on June 3rd will be donated to Ypsi Pride to help sustain its future in our community.

Curator’s Notes:

This exhibition, “QUEER: Celebrating Work by LGBTQIA Artists,” holds a dear place in my heart. As a queer artist, business owner and curator, I have a deep passion and feel a special responsibility to provide a platform for others to show their work. To submit artwork for an exhibition is not only a risk which carries with it the chance of rejection (a fear all too familiar for someone who is queer), but it is an exercise of intimate vulnerability. One’s work is direct access and exposure to what makes the artist tick, feeding their life, their mind and their soul. For a queer artist, it is this very public gaze that can be a beautifully validating experience as well as a potentially dangerous one. Again, this real risk that may result in pain or pleasure is a familiar gamble…a familiar “coming out” to the world and growing into ourselves.

Much of this work has been created within the last two years, which has been a strangely isolated time. Many took this as an opportunity to reflect, and look deeply into what it means to be happy – peaceful – connected – fulfilled – authentic…what it means to just “be.” Art is, of course, transformative in many ways, and always will be for so many reasons, but I have found that through art, people can show the world who they really are…who they have always been..and, for them, what it means to “be.”

Join me in celebrating this collection of eclectic work, and the brave LGBTQIA artists who created it.

Queerly,

Jen

*Mobility note: Our beautiful 19th century building has no elevator, so attendees will need to take a flight of stairs up to The Gallery. If you are unable to do stairs, but would like to see the exhibition, we will be posting a live video tour of the exhibition with the artists for an insider’s perspective. This will be another great way to see this exhibition!