Radical Healing Art Show!
A virtual exhibition hosted by Radical Healing in Durham, North Carolina, June 2020.
The creation and celebration of art has always been a source of healing. In this moment of global self-isolation and collective grief and uprising in response to racist state, medical, and police violence, you are invited to investigate what it means to heal radically. What are you healing from? What makes it radical? What does radical healing look, sound, smell, taste, feel like?
JOIN US!
In lieu of Covid-19 we are embracing the moment and hosting the show virtually. Send us your visual art, film, music and sound, performance, movement, poetry and prose! Submit your artwork, including artist’s name, title, media, and a short bio and/or artist statement via email to cassie@healingjusticearts.com. Visual images, sound files, and video files welcome. Submissions will continue to be accepted on a rolling basis.
Click on any image below to view larger. Hover over image to view artist statement.
Please note that some artwork may contain sensitive content. The artists and curators have decided to include this content in the show intentionally, to honor the artists’ expressions and experiences of healing, as well as to honor the potential that these works may inspire healing for others.
Holding Space
Naimah Thomas, 2020
'“Holding space means walking alongside someone (physically or metaphorically) with empathy and humility. Free of shame. Co-creating a space free of judgement. It is an invitation to bear witness to the courage and resilience of the human spirit.”
naimahthomasart.com // instagram: @naimah_creates
Radical Healing
Naimah Thomas, 2020
'“Radical Healing is resisting oppression and moving toward freedom.”
-Ginwright
naimahthomasart.com // instagram: @naimah_creates
elsewhere
Cassandra J. Rowe, 2020
Acrylic on canvas. 1"1”x14”
Cassandra (Cassie) is a painter, illustrator, storyteller and curator. In addition to creative work she is a domestic violence advocate. Cassie is a lover of deep friendship, raucous laughter, horror films and her dogs Olive and Crusty. Cassie’s creative inspirations include heartbreak, community, dark humor, Durham and the surreal/supernatural/extraterrestrial.
These two paintings (Cancer Season and elsewhere) are among the creative work I've done during the pandemic and uprising against racism in the US, as I struggle with and adapt to this unprecedented time, and dream about the world I want to help birth in the wake of it all. Cancer Season is a self portrait, inspired by my experience of processing a relatively recent trauma during this time - feeling messy, and like there isn't quite a place for my grief, and coming to terms with that. I painted elsewhere toward the end of Pride Month, asking the question, what would a planet created by queers and BIPOC be like? Can we go there?
cassandrajrowe.com
instagram: @cee_jay_reaux
Pomegranate
Jasmine Irvin
Jasmine Irvin is a psychologist at Radical Healing who finds great joy in supporting the liberation and creativity of others, and also cherishes the moments she finds for her self expression through writing and collage.
“I made this about women, desire, tensions around aging, body image, & feeling free.”
Cancer Season
Cassandra J. Rowe, 2020
Acrylic on canvas. 1"1”x14”
Cassandra (Cassie) is a painter, illustrator, storyteller and curator. In addition to creative work she is a domestic violence advocate. Cassie is a lover of deep friendship, raucous laughter, horror films and her dogs Olive and Crusty. Cassie’s creative inspirations include heartbreak, community, dark humor, Durham and the surreal/supernatural/extraterrestrial.
These two paintings (Cancer Season and elsewhere) are among the creative work I've done during the pandemic and uprising against racism in the US, as I struggle with and adapt to this unprecedented time, and dream about the world I want to help birth in the wake of it all. Cancer Season is a self portrait, inspired by my experience of processing a relatively recent trauma during this time - feeling messy, and like there isn't quite a place for my grief, and coming to terms with that. I painted elsewhere toward the end of Pride Month, asking the question, what would a planet created by queers and BIPOC be like? Can we go there?
cassandrajrowe.com
instagram: @cee_jay_reaux
Facial Components
Kai Thompson
Kai Thompson is a program analyst, researcher and amateur artist. She is from Harper Woods, Michigan, grew up in Charlotte, NC and currently lives in Washington, DC.
Kai studies social science and works on a government program funding technology for rural healthcare. In her spare time, she makes collage and mixed media art and also enjoys music, films, and modern art. To view more of Kai’s work you can check out her personal blog kdtfunctional.com or her Instagram accounts @thesamespots and @kdtfunctional.
Romantic Delusions
Kai Thompson
Kai Thompson is a program analyst, researcher and amateur artist. She is from Harper Woods, Michigan, grew up in Charlotte, NC and currently lives in Washington, DC.
Kai studies social science and works on a government program funding technology for rural healthcare. In her spare time, she makes collage and mixed media art and also enjoys music, films, and modern art. To view more of Kai’s work you can check out her personal blog kdtfunctional.com or her Instagram accounts @thesamespots and @kdtfunctional.
Alien Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Kai Thompson
Kai Thompson is a program analyst, researcher and amateur artist. She is from Harper Woods, Michigan, grew up in Charlotte, NC and currently lives in Washington, DC.
Kai studies social science and works on a government program funding technology for rural healthcare. In her spare time, she makes collage and mixed media art and also enjoys music, films, and modern art. To view more of Kai’s work you can check out her personal blog kdtfunctional.com or her Instagram accounts @thesamespots and @kdtfunctional.
Her Pet Parrot
Kai Thompson
Kai Thompson is a program analyst, researcher and amateur artist. She is from Harper Woods, Michigan, grew up in Charlotte, NC and currently lives in Washington, DC.
Kai studies social science and works on a government program funding technology for rural healthcare. In her spare time, she makes collage and mixed media art and also enjoys music, films, and modern art. To view more of Kai’s work you can check out her personal blog kdtfunctional.com or her Instagram accounts @thesamespots and @kdtfunctional.
Art on Fire
Maya Freelon, 2020
Maya Freelon sets her artwork ablaze on Juneteenth, in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter Movement. Location - Vanhook Farm - Hurdle Mills, NC. Read Maya’s full artist statement at mayafreelon.com/statement.
Sea Floor
Catherine Edgerton
11”x17” (inside multi-media collage book). Prints for sale; proceeds go to Durham Beyond Policing. Contact harveysuesails@gmail.com.
Catherine Edgerton has been inking, layering and stitching mixed-media records in hand-bound books since she was fourteen. As her practice expands into stained-glass and multi-media kaleidoscopes, Her main areas of focus are race, surrealism, the sea, and mental dis-ease in a dystopian society. Having exhibited throughout the southeast, she does much of her work in and with community; in 2014 she initiated the Art Asylum, which is building a living museum in Durham, NC. She is currently working as an artist and collaborator for Gallery of The Streets, a network of artists, activists, scholars, cultural workers, and community supporters who are committed to exploring radical possibilities within Black geographies.
Shark
Catherine Edgerton
11”x17” (inside multi-media collage book). Prints for sale; proceeds go to Durham Beyond Policing. Contact harveysuesails@gmail.com.
Catherine Edgerton has been inking, layering and stitching mixed-media records in hand-bound books since she was fourteen. As her practice expands into stained-glass and multi-media kaleidoscopes, Her main areas of focus are race, surrealism, the sea, and mental dis-ease in a dystopian society. Having exhibited throughout the southeast, she does much of her work in and with community; in 2014 she initiated the Art Asylum, which is building a living museum in Durham, NC. She is currently working as an artist and collaborator for Gallery of The Streets, a network of artists, activists, scholars, cultural workers, and community supporters who are committed to exploring radical possibilities within Black geographies.
The Plague
Catherine Edgerton
11”x17” (inside multi-media collage book). Prints for sale; proceeds go to Durham Beyond Policing. Contact
harveysuesails@gmail.com.
Catherine Edgerton has been inking, layering and stitching mixed-media records in hand-bound books since she was fourteen. As her practice expands into stained-glass and multi-media kaleidoscopes, Her main areas of focus are race, surrealism, the sea, and mental dis-ease in a dystopian society. Having exhibited throughout the southeast, she does much of her work in and with community; in 2014 she initiated the Art Asylum, which is building a living museum in Durham, NC. She is currently working as an artist and collaborator for Gallery of The Streets, a network of artists, activists, scholars, cultural workers, and community supporters who are committed to exploring radical possibilities within Black geographies.
Sunlit 1
Bethany Bash, 2020
5" x 7", colored pencil on toned paper
These drawings were created using colored pencil on toned paper. They illustrate light and life emerging from an empty prescription bottle. Working to reframe the negative narratives surrounding mental health, these images cast a hopeful glow on the medications that treat mental illness. These drawings also reflect my experience of using medication as one of several tools in order to best care for my mental wellbeing, and the personal growth that followed.
bethanybash.com // instagram: @BethanyBash_Art
Sunlit 4
Bethany Bash, 2020
5" x 7", colored pencil on toned paper
These drawings were created using colored pencil on toned paper. They illustrate light and life emerging from an empty prescription bottle. Working to reframe the negative narratives surrounding mental health, these images cast a hopeful glow on the medications that treat mental illness. These drawings also reflect my experience of using medication as one of several tools in order to best care for my mental wellbeing, and the personal growth that followed.
bethanybash.com // instagram: @BethanyBash_Art
Sunlit 2
Bethany Bash, 2020
5" x 7", colored pencil on toned paper
These drawings were created using colored pencil on toned paper. They illustrate light and life emerging from an empty prescription bottle. Working to reframe the negative narratives surrounding mental health, these images cast a hopeful glow on the medications that treat mental illness. These drawings also reflect my experience of using medication as one of several tools in order to best care for my mental wellbeing, and the personal growth that followed.
bethanybash.com // instagram: @BethanyBash_Art
Sunlit 5
Bethany Bash, 2020
5" x 7", colored pencil on toned paper
These drawings were created using colored pencil on toned paper. They illustrate light and life emerging from an empty prescription bottle. Working to reframe the negative narratives surrounding mental health, these images cast a hopeful glow on the medications that treat mental illness. These drawings also reflect my experience of using medication as one of several tools in order to best care for my mental wellbeing, and the personal growth that followed.
bethanybash.com // instagram: @BethanyBash_Art
Sunlit 3
Bethany Bash, 2020
5" x 7", colored pencil on toned paper
These drawings were created using colored pencil on toned paper. They illustrate light and life emerging from an empty prescription bottle. Working to reframe the negative narratives surrounding mental health, these images cast a hopeful glow on the medications that treat mental illness. These drawings also reflect my experience of using medication as one of several tools in order to best care for my mental wellbeing, and the personal growth that followed.
bethanybash.com // instagram: @BethanyBash_Art
Sunlit 6
Bethany Bash, 2020
5" x 7", colored pencil on toned paper
These drawings were created using colored pencil on toned paper. They illustrate light and life emerging from an empty prescription bottle. Working to reframe the negative narratives surrounding mental health, these images cast a hopeful glow on the medications that treat mental illness. These drawings also reflect my experience of using medication as one of several tools in order to best care for my mental wellbeing, and the personal growth that followed.
bethanybash.com // instagram: @BethanyBash_Art
The Van Den Berg-Thompson Family
Zachary Van Den Berg, 2019
36 x 36 inches, Oil on Canvas
From the Painting Series: Family Portraits
“In this body of work, I attempt to represent the queer family unit through traditional family portraiture. It is trying to shift who is represented in the institutional space, as well as who can participate in collecting such works. Each portrait will be donated to the family portrayed.”
LGBTQ Artist Gallery Opening Announcement at Center on Halsted
Zachary Van Den Berg is currently achieving their Master of Arts in Counseling: Art Therapy from Adler University, and is interested in arts-based research and working with the LGBTQ+ community.
In June: Sex, Money, Magick
Bree L. Davis
There is Magic in Art! There is Magic in the future-later. Bree works to create dream sequence and magical 5D visions and collages with mixed materials, scraps/recycled materials and mixed media for canvass and mural installations using taboo subject matters of the metaphysical and paranormal --highlighting sex, injustice, oppression, death, rebirth and other inspirations from my personal and public traumas and triumphs. Themes of race, metasymbology, gematria, HZ vibrations, Voodoo & Hoodoo, Ancient Egyptian Memphite Theology, Greek Mythology and influential women in history. My work lifts the veil of the intentions manifested in the writings of Zora Neale Hurston and Octavia Butler — inspired by Wangechi Mutu all interpreted on the Cusp of Magick. As a Digital Producer my first docushort in progress is “The Queen of the Niggerati : Zora Neale Hurstons Conjuring in Durham, NC”
I'm shinnin' for the cuspers of the zodiac! My birthday is June 21st which is the Cusp of Gemini-Cancer also known as The Cusp of Magic! Although much speculation has shed light on the viability of a Cusp - I'm living proof of the tangibility of dual zodiac aspects. My art reflects the concise contradictions and themes of being on the cusp of those two signs.
hi-score : you play too much
Bree L. Davis
There is Magic in Art! There is Magic in the future-later. Bree works to create dream sequence and magical 5D visions and collages with mixed materials, scraps/recycled materials and mixed media for canvass and mural installations using taboo subject matters of the metaphysical and paranormal --highlighting sex, injustice, oppression, death, rebirth and other inspirations from my personal and public traumas and triumphs. Themes of race, metasymbology, gematria, HZ vibrations, Voodoo & Hoodoo, Ancient Egyptian Memphite Theology, Greek Mythology and influential women in history. My work lifts the veil of the intentions manifested in the writings of Zora Neale Hurston and Octavia Butler — inspired by Wangechi Mutu all interpreted on the Cusp of Magick. As a Digital Producer my first docushort in progress is “The Queen of the Niggerati : Zora Neale Hurstons Conjuring in Durham, NC”
I'm shinnin' for the cuspers of the zodiac! My birthday is June 21st which is the Cusp of Gemini-Cancer also known as The Cusp of Magic! Although much speculation has shed light on the viability of a Cusp - I'm living proof of the tangibility of dual zodiac aspects. My art reflects the concise contradictions and themes of being on the cusp of those two signs.
621
Bree L. Davis
There is Magic in Art! There is Magic in the future-later. Bree works to create dream sequence and magical 5D visions and collages with mixed materials, scraps/recycled materials and mixed media for canvass and mural installations using taboo subject matters of the metaphysical and paranormal --highlighting sex, injustice, oppression, death, rebirth and other inspirations from my personal and public traumas and triumphs. Themes of race, metasymbology, gematria, HZ vibrations, Voodoo & Hoodoo, Ancient Egyptian Memphite Theology, Greek Mythology and influential women in history. My work lifts the veil of the intentions manifested in the writings of Zora Neale Hurston and Octavia Butler — inspired by Wangechi Mutu all interpreted on the Cusp of Magick. As a Digital Producer my first docushort in progress is “The Queen of the Niggerati : Zora Neale Hurstons Conjuring in Durham, NC”
I'm shinnin' for the cuspers of the zodiac! My birthday is June 21st which is the Cusp of Gemini-Cancer also known as The Cusp of Magic! Although much speculation has shed light on the viability of a Cusp - I'm living proof of the tangibility of dual zodiac aspects. My art reflects the concise contradictions and themes of being on the cusp of those two signs.
ConjureArt showcase “We Share the Sun” curated by Perk + Neil at Golden Belt Arts
Bree L. Davis
There is Magic in Art! There is Magic in the future-later. Bree works to create dream sequence and magical 5D visions and collages with mixed materials, scraps/recycled materials and mixed media for canvass and mural installations using taboo subject matters of the metaphysical and paranormal --highlighting sex, injustice, oppression, death, rebirth and other inspirations from my personal and public traumas and triumphs. Themes of race, metasymbology, gematria, HZ vibrations, Voodoo & Hoodoo, Ancient Egyptian Memphite Theology, Greek Mythology and influential women in history. My work lifts the veil of the intentions manifested in the writings of Zora Neale Hurston and Octavia Butler — inspired by Wangechi Mutu all interpreted on the Cusp of Magick. As a Digital Producer my first docushort in progress is “The Queen of the Niggerati : Zora Neale Hurstons Conjuring in Durham, NC”
I'm shinnin' for the cuspers of the zodiac! My birthday is June 21st which is the Cusp of Gemini-Cancer also known as The Cusp of Magic! Although much speculation has shed light on the viability of a Cusp - I'm living proof of the tangibility of dual zodiac aspects. My art reflects the concise contradictions and themes of being on the cusp of those two signs.
Pinch
Atom Dewitt Edwards, 2020
Charcoal and Pencil on Paper
I thought this self portrait would show how you can still find comedy at the darkest times.
Broken Reflection Photography
Atom Dewitt Edwards from Hélène Desplechin, 2020
Charcoal and Pencil on Paper
The original image made me think about how water has this melting feeling to it if you see it at the right angle.
Citation: Desplechin, Hélène. Broken Reflection Photography (a collection). 2011. https://www.flickr.com/photos/heldes/.
¿Que Hora Es?
Atom Dewitt Edwards, 2020
Charcoal and Pencil on Paper
What time should we start doing stuff? It's really up in the air right now, but we'll figure it out as we go.
She's a Cosmic Corpse
Jean Paul
This image contains content that may be sensitive. Please click here to view full artwork.
I want there to be safety for trans people, especially trans women of color. They deserve so much more from this world than what they're given. She's dismembered because this society tore her apart. But despite this, her mouth is still a speaker and she will her message heard!