Center On Halsted Art Gallery Opening – APRIL 10
Located on the 2nd and 3rd floor at the Center on Halsted – come experience the best in Queer art. Free to enjoy. Donations accepted at the Volunteer desk.
Join us for the opening reception featuring art by Ms. Alexander Martin (she/her/hers) on our second floor and Noah Thomas (he/him) on our third floor.
ARTIST: Ms. Alexander Martin (she/her/hers) – My practice takes the largely oral and embodied tradition of my communities (Black, Trans, Queer, Appalachian) and brings them into public, academic, and art spaces via mixed media work, performance, dance, and education, in an effort to shift the dominant canon. Through painting, sculpture, illustration, performance, and ritual, my current work is documentation, religious artifact, lore, and history, of an imagined world that is Black, Trans, and Queer at its core. A world of Divine beings, spirits, practitioners, demons, all participating in an endless dance and cycle of self discovery, growth, empowerment, and rebirth. With its own language (Qyrd) and pantheon of divine houses, this work elevates cultural and historical elements of my communities to a space of celebration. It represents the endless cycle of growth, healing, re-birth, survival, and empowerment that is at the core of the queer experience. Ancestry, legacy, hardship, what is passed down or carried on, the cultural elements that survive or are invented, are all reimagined through a lens of mythos..
ARTIST: Noah Thomas (he/him) – Rooted in a rapidly changing world, my works hold tightly to the feelings of growth and how we are shaped by our experiences. Within my series, Wandering Through, abstract forms shift in and out of uncanny and familiar shapes while navigating atmospheric and colorful dreamlike landscapes. My working method involves using sponges, layering and glazing to capture textures that make a space feel real. Finding a delicate balance between the bold linework, surreal color palettes, and negative space is central to my works. I strive to create a harmonious relationship between the movement of the linework and shapes while preserving the contrast as the subjects dance throughout the negative space in the surreal environment. Visually inspired by my persistent desire to be outside, memories, and the beauty we find along the way, the series reflects how we adapt to our surroundings and learn from the encounters that inevitably shape our lives and the organisms around us. My love for creating a world that can feel just as expressive as the subjects within the space has been a consistent unifying theme throughout my works. I aim to capture not only what a space looks like, but how it feels to inhabit it. As the world continues to change, my series invites us to slow down, reflect, and enjoy the moment you’re in while wandering through the experiences life has to offer.
