Karen May

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NIAD artists on KALX radio

Virtual Event

On Friday, July 29th, DJ Surface Tension invites KALX listeners to tune in to an ear-opening conversation with the "sounding artists" of NIAD Art Center as they discuss their most recent release Sounding Artists R Sweet and So R You.  Featured in this conversation are artists Luis Estrada, Christian Vassel, and Raven Harper. This studio compilation captures the rawness of NIAD's community artists at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Recorded in early 2020 over the phone and in zoom, the outcome is equal parts poignant, hilarious, beautiful and boundary-pushing. Sounding Artists R Sweet and So R You is a sonic answer to the age old question: what is music? Find the Read More ...

NIAD Online Exhibition // “I Belong To Myself” organized by Maria Seda-Reeder

NIAD Online Gallery

Being an artist who helps bring new, radical ideas into the world is neither an easy nor simple task. So it takes a certain, special kind of magic—charisma, self-belief, instinct—to move through the world going against the grain, as innovative artists so often do. I'm honored to have the chance to put forth this small sampling of artists from NIAD, an organization that likewise is working at the forefront of contemporary art. 

NIAD Gallery Exhibition // “Feeling Language,” organized by Kate Laster

NIAD Art Center 551 23rd Street, Richmond, CA, United States

This show is all about comfort text: resilience in everyday words, writing and reading. Expression can also be wordless, the use of line and color as new vocabulary, pushing a thought out onto a surface, making marks and continuously trying to communicate with the world.

We tell stories to sustain ourselves and find each other. These messages embedded in art become an emotional telegram– a signal flare with a flame of memory trailing behind it. "Feeling Language" is about books, lists, slogans, language, gesture, touch and the trust given in sharing.

Free

“Rainbow Cat Picnic” organized by Cynthia Ona Innis

NIAD Online Gallery

About the Exhibition The title of this exhibition comes from a piece included in the show, Dorian Reid's Rainbow Cat Picnic.  In Rainbow Cat Picnic, numerous cats are joyously picnic-ing under a big colorful rainbow in what looks to be a very festive occasion.  There may be rain but that rainbow safely covers the cats and their food bowls. The sun is just coming out and those cats are really having a good time! The mixed media works in this show are my Rainbow Cat Picnic--20+ pieces representing an inspiring and colorful excursion to a place of creative nourishment and a celebration as a Read More ...

“The Rainbow Dancing in the Room” organized by Liz Hernández (online exhibition)

NIAD Online Gallery

The Rainbow Dancing in the Room highlights the transformation of light from its quieter state to a vibrant kaleidoscopic form. The pieces range from peaceful to energetic, offering an intimate and introspective experience. The exhibition features artists Julio del Rio, Willie Harris, Karen May, Shantae Robinson, and Tre'von Silva.

Karen May in “Salad Days” // Grand Opening for “Personal Space”

Personal Space 1505 Tennessee Street, Vallejo, CA

Personal Space presents Salad Days, an inaugural group exhibition featuring work by artists from Vallejo, the broader Bay Area, Los Angeles, Iowa, New York, and London. As the title denotes the vigor and recklessness of youth, the works assembled here suggest the vulnerability of new beginnings through an abundance of color, humor, material experimentation, and bittersweet pathos. Taken together, these artists dredge the joyful precarity of fleeting moments and summertime bliss to reveal something far more dreamlike and mysterious.