Exhibitions

Sanctuaries is a group exhibition where artists expound the meaning and imagination of the true and metaphysical sanctuaries that co-exist as protection, agency, preservation, and healing. Through painting, textile, ceramic, photography, riso, and mixed media, each artist shares a personal inquiry into the inward and outward meanings of sanctuary. They explore the transcendent, environmental, and personal relationships within their lives, often tracing the many ways a sanctuary can be a tool for transformation. Memories, community, reimagination, nature, and materiality act as a metamorphosis for introspection, joy, grief, and alternative realities.

With hands intertwined, people have pressed their feet in soil and moved in faith to find refuge among others or in sacred places – a gesture spanning across generations of people and species. This pathway often leads to an uninterrupted existence where an imagined interdependency becomes tangible. Built through reciprocity, care, and protest, ‘sanctuary’ shapes a vision of what is possible by opposing immorality and inciting a catalyst for evolved systems and persons.

Sanctuaries ask us, "What or who is your sanctuary? How does sanctuary surround you? And how do you hold it sacred? How do we return to ourselves, to one another, and to places that hold us?"

Sanctuaries feature contemporary artists Ronna Ballister, Joe Bruns, Rachel Curry, Austyn de Lugo-Liston, Sandra Gallegos, Frankie Gutierrez, Ruzanna Hanesyan, Sergio Hernandez, Heather Hilliard Bonds, Gail Howland, Ed Leonardi, Matt MacFarland, Brandi Mack-Khalfani, Simone Montemurno, Elonda Norris, Julieta Reynoso, Joe Sanchez, Allison Segura, and Dajin Yoon.

This exhibition was organized by Armory Center for the Arts Programs Department. Image: Rachel Curry, Sitto's Sewing Room TV, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.