Judith Diehl

This work was a personal breakthrough. In a moment of anxiety and frustration, where I would typically disintegrate into a trembling pool of tears and negative behaviors, I instead sat down with a ball of clay. I sat with my clay, felt its coolness against my skin, and began to pull it apart angrily and wipe it onto a wooden wareboard. After a few minutes, not only had my breathing slowed, but I looked down to see that I had created a beautiful texture with pieces of clay that held onto my fingerprint. Out of curiosity, I attempted to create the same texture on my body and soon realized the breakthrough I had just made. I curbed an anxiety attack, by myself, with no harmful behaviors and with healthy coping mechanisms. The realization hit me that this texture of fingerprints I was creating was less about its beauty and more about the control I have over my own body. This work, this performance, process, film, and experience, is a tremendous milestone in my recovery.

Gabriella Stauffer 

I make myself: My perspective is the only perspective I can truly understand or express. In every artwork, a piece of an artist comes through, but it is common for this “self” to be shown through abstraction, creating a blanket or wall to soften the truth about someone. I often ask “why doesn’t anybody ever really know anyone else? Why do we so often pretend to be a watered-down version of ourselves for the comfort of someone else?” It has thus become an act of activism to show something true about oneself rather than a curated, stripped-down expression, and I wish this were not the case.

To me, it feels safe to show something innately personal to others, especially through a simple graphic style, despite this vulnerability opening me up to critique or concern. I also consider how personal testimony often seems “relatable,” or relates to a wider audience than one may initially expect. Taking personal, private stories and experiences and placing them in a public view can lead to a lot of connection between people. Sometimes, someone else’s experiences help make you feel “seen," and I want more of that. In showing my inner self outwardly, I hope to spark someone else to do the same; in this, we can demystify the personal.

Gabby Holt

Each photograph included in this gallery is a reflection of the intersexuality of me being both a woman and Black. These photographs were taken in the timespan between 2017 to 2021. I am thankful that I get to use my voice in my own unique way which is my art. As you look at these photographs, internalize what it means for you to be as you experience what it is to be me. The people, nature, and me are all a part of a world that for so long has been discriminatory to Black women and I want to begin the process of dismantling that system and changing that narrative. To all my Black women, thank you for inspiring beyond measures and for being the catalysts of my art.

Love, Gabby.

K. Anna Kovach

Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin were pioneers of the queer liberation movement, and their activism has played a significant role in my life, and the lives of other women. This diptych shows Phyllis and Del in two phases of life, as young women in the 1950s only able to meet in secret and later in front of the home which they owned together in San Francisco. The earlier image is paired with writing from Del Martin’s book Lesbian/Woman, while the second is paired with a letter I had written to them. I often regret not writing to Phyllis while she was alive and choose to honor their legacy through my work.

Kelly Patrick

I have always been drawn to figurative work, and I’m interested in boundaries. Moments when a shape becomes a silhouette, a color becomes defined by its surroundings, or an outline becomes a path connecting one space to another, are some of the most exciting and difficult to understand. Painting is a way to the handle difficulties of living in a human body and allows for a form of communication more intimate and honest than conversation. Where a voice falters, a line speaks firmly in its place. While we rapidly perceive one another, fragmented versions of our minds and bodies are regenerated in attempts to understand who and what we are. There is comfort in the process of learning and unlearning how we perceive ourselves and others. Shapes and colors melt until they fit together, and I am reminded of connections between people, and the way we are shaped by bits of distant conversations with strangers, or the ones we keep close.

Sydney Summey

This collection is a cry for an exchange. An exchange if one is willing to take the time for it. It would be one of trading ideals rooted in unacceptance for that of understanding and empathy. It would be for the tenderness of our truth that black skin holds a gentle people, a people that although have ever aching hearts for our brothers and sisters that there remains a hope, a dream, a voice, and a radical love. And it is the absolute essence of our love that drives our song, our march, and our care.

Princess Egbo 

Unrest is defined as a disturbed or uneasy state. Year after year, we as Black people see and hear about cases like this, the same formula and narrative. An unarmed black person, a cop, and always some reasoning on why it happened. We often hear, “He wasn’t a saint” or “They were resisting” and we are tired. I had become so desensitized to the killing of Black men, but the case of George Floyd was so unnerving and was a clear awaking of the reality of being Black in America that I’ve tried so hard to avoid. The idea of hope and optimism dying with every scroll through the internet. Hours spent reading and arguing with individuals who enjoyed living in a world of ignorance and privilege. UNREST.

I made this piece after taking a break from social media and as a way to relieve stress. I spent 18 straight hours creating this piece using the medium acrylic on canvas board.

Caeley Blechschmid

There is so much that can be told from the human figure in its purest form and with all its intricacies, and I make work to tell the story. Through realistic depictions, I capture some of the traits of the human body that are ridiculed in the media for imperfection, showing all body types and characteristics. I make visible marks, like paint strokes, that creates an essence of purposeful imperfection. Throughout our lives, our bodies change, our skin stretches, weight fluctuates, and wear and tear happen; this does not make any person unworthy of being depicted. Science groups people of the same anatomical features, and the uniqueness of each human form is lost. Through my art practice, I can learn more about anatomy while simultaneously creating pieces of work that emphasize the difference among bodies.

Jet Ni 

This piece utilizes a found video made by the United States Department of Defense in 1964 called the Red Chinese Battle Plan. This 28-minute propaganda video was created to portray China as a threat to American society and culture, with themes of anti-communism and revitalizing ideas from the earlier period of Yellow Peril fear-mongering. Despite almost six decades passing since this video was released, the recent attitudes displayed by the public shows that anti-Asian sentiments still resonate strongly among many people. As a viewer tries to make sense of the video masked into the shadows, they are also forced to hold the gaze of an Asian-American and reflect.

Nasra Osman

My work expresses women’s empowerment; strong, intelligent, independent, beautiful women capable of carrying an entire world on their shoulders. These pieces celebrate the beauty of diversity in race, ethnicity, and religion. It highlights the cultural and religious aspects that make us who we are. I want my audience to remember, in a world of unrealistic standards and expectations, remember who YOU truly are and embrace the beauty of yourself. I use Arabic calligraphy to dive into my identity and add a personal touch. Additionally, these pieces bring attention to the current systemic racism against black people that infiltrated the world, be it west or east. It serves as a reminder that no matter what our skin color is, we are all one and we should all be treated with respect, compassion, and dignity.

Brett Taylor

My work explores the relationship between queerness, masculinity, and physical ability through the queering and crippling of the male form. The body, as object, exists in a constant state of becoming. A process of uninterrupted bodybuilding by which a person orders and reorders the self, responding to resistance. Negotiations with the fluctuating spatial conditions, the body is forced to resist the environmental restrictions in an effort to grow beyond them. This stimulus for physical change is only obstructed by the will of the mind. The potential self is never realized exasperated by the failure to achieve maximum capacity. Beings strive to identify the physical boundaries that define them only to identify new ones that confine them. Growth centered around inadequacies seeks failure to strive for infinite improvement. The tension between the interior and exterior being leaves the body in a developmental state, never quite complete.

Lydia Smith

While visiting Jeffers Mound (named after the family that worked to preserve the site when the surrounding land was subdivided), I took a series of panoramic photos circumambulating the mound. I walked from the left, and then from the right, my camera facing the large pile of raised earth. The mound sits at the center of a large cul-de-sac, surrounded by suburban homes. There are trees sprouting out of the top. While the language and history of the people who built these sites no longer reside in our living memory, I know the land remembers what we cannot. I imagined what it must feel like to be this mound, outliving its creators, the last of its kind. I imagined the mound staring up at the sky as the wind spiraling around it. Memories still linger and traces of the past still haunt us, reminding us what has been lost.

Shahid Khan

My recent series American Made is a visual mediation of my experiences within the predominant Indian and American cultures, as well as their respective subcultures. In each piece, I recontextualize written language, consumer goods, or national emblems in order to examine their commonalities and distinctions. For example, I have created typographic posters that contain both English and Hindi word-forms; sculptural objects that combine baseball and cricket bats; and eating utensils that are magnetized to one another. American Made illustrates the complex nature of my multicultural experience and directs the viewer to reflect on their own, simply by examining the objects and languages they surround themselves with daily.