This Exhibit is past. Visit our Exhibitions page for information on the current programming.
America The Beautiful
Manju Shandler, Curator
February 27 – April 27, 2025
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 27, 2025, 6:00 PM
Gallery Hours: Friday – Sunday, Noon – 4:00 pm
America the Beautiful features a collection of diverse artists who approach art making ferociously. These artists simultaneously acknowledge the complexities of our nation’s history and current political, environmental and social turmoil, while creating deeply thoughtful and meticulously crafted works that celebrate what it is to be American today. The selected works, all created within the swirling chaos of the last ten years, exhibit a personal meditation on the outside world, while honing and celebrating the actionable personal power inherent in art making.
America the Beautiful exhibits artists mining the Declaration of Independence’s promise of equality, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These artists have delved into the full range of human emotions from sadness to joy, rage, humor, fear, excitement and exhaustion to create uniquely American works that speak directly to this moment in time.
Symbolic imagery in the artworks creates dynamic dialogue: from objects about protests and parades (by We Make America and Fay Ku) to Julie Peppito’s small personal mantra (Action is the Antidote to Anxiety). Peaceful rebellion and celebration of deep inner spirit are represented in Demarcus McGaughey’s vibrant portraits, Dale Williams’ Profiles for Democracy and Esperanza Cortés’s detailed mixed media embroideries. JoAnne McFarland, Traci Johnson and Manju Shandler each mine Americana while exploring personal symbols of rebirth.
Participating Artists:
and the collective We Make America
Enjoy this virtual tour slide show of the exhibition, photographed by Etienne Frossard.
Public Programs:
Wednesday, March 19th, 7-8:30pm: Artist Talk and Collaborative Drawing
Sunday, March 30th, 3:30-6pm: Artist Talk and Collaborative Drawing
Sunday, April 27th, 1-3pm: Puppetry Workshop with Teresa Linnihan
Virtual Tour:
All photographs by Etienne Frossard.
Traci Johnson
Our Hearts Dance Birthing Secret Sunlight on the Sea Floor, 2024
Yarn on faux fur and mirror, 5.8 x 3.6 feet
As a Brooklyn-born artist, my work reflects the vibrant, multifaceted spirit of American identity. This piece, born from the collision of personal and societal expectations, explores the journey of self-discovery. Drawing inspiration from textile traditions and subverting traditional notions of femininity, I utilize abstract forms and vibrant colors to create a space for emotional exploration and a celebration of authentic selfhood. This piece, a testament to the intricate dance between ego and soul, embodies the American spirit of individuality and the pursuit of freedom. My work is about reclaiming who you are, deeply inside of who you would like to be.
Brooklyn-born artist Traci Johnson delves into the complexities of femininity through a captivating blend of textile design, installation, and sculpture. A distinguished Fashion Institute of Technology graduate, Traci’s artistic foundation fuels their exploration of self-discovery within societal expectations placed on women. Their work transcends the limitations of traditional art, gracing the walls of prestigious galleries including Canada, Cierra Britton, Morgan Lehman, and the Museum at FIT. Beyond the binary, their art celebrates the future where embracing all aspects of identity leads to a more genuine self. Abstract patterns, vibrant hues, and unconventional shapes have become tools for Traci to subvert societal structures built around the feminine form. Their work fosters a safe space for emotional exploration, encouraging viewers to explore a freer authenticity beneath idealized versions of womanhood.
We Make America
Protest Objects, 2016-2022
Acrylic paint on cardboard, various sizes
We Make America is an artist/activist collective that formed in 2016 as an immediate response to the shocking presidential election. At the initial meeting, 16 artists came together to discuss how to respond and resist. The group quickly expanded and the
protests and actions against the administration and its policies began to occur with heightening frequency. We create colorful, innovative, thought provoking signs and props for the protest marches and actions in large, fun, frequent making sessions in response to the themes of the marches beginning with the Women’s March in New York and in DC.
The name, We Make America, was a response to Donald Trump’s MAGA slogan. We want to inspire and empower people to think critically, to engage as active participants in democracy and resist the ongoing threats to our rights. We are the ones who Make
America. We welcome artists, graphic designers, architects, filmmakers, writers, technology experts, educators and makers of all kinds.
We pool skills, working together to ensure that our voices are heard. We Make America used social media to brainstorm images and ideas that led to the creation of the signs and props for marches, actions, and other projects.
Our diverse collective of people seeks to contribute to civil society, and to advocate for social justice, human rights, immigrant rights and the rights of the disenfranchised. We want to inspire others to do the same. At the core of our political actions are powerful visual statements that raise awareness about issues and liberties that are in jeopardy. We believe there was a vital need to address the erosion of democracy. And the frightening erosion of democracy is even more concerning today at the dawn of the second Trump presidency.
Janet Goldner
Manju Shandler (bottom)
Sleeping Eagle 3, 2018
Mixed media, 15 x 16 x 16 inches
Julie Peppito (top)
Action is the Antidote to Anxiety, 2024
Mixed media on paper, 9 x 12 inches
Julie Peppito combines reused objects with craft media to transform the waste of our culture into objects of strangeness and beauty. Her sculptures, tapestries, and installations are about oneness, repairing the earth, and the human condition.
“When my grandparents came to New York City as immigrants, the Irish side were met with, ‘Irish need not apply’ and the Italians were called ‘dirty WOPs.’ My mom and dad moved to the suburbs of Oklahoma before I was born in search of their American Dream of a better life. In 1988, I moved to New York City in search of my own American Dream to be an artist. While here, I learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre that had happened in my hometown of Tulsa, OK in 1921. I had never learned about it during my entire childhood in Oklahoma. The realization that my education had such a pointed omission led me into activism.”
Julie Peppito received an MFA from Alfred University in Alfred, NY and she received her BFA from The Cooper Union in New York, NY. Her work has been the subject of 10 solo exhibitions. She has shown at many galleries including: Kentler International Drawing Space, The Long Island Children’s Museum, Heskin Contemporary, PS122, and The CAMP Gallery. Peppito received a NYFA Fellowship in Sculpture. Her playground art is at Washington Park, James Forten Playground, and other Brooklyn, NY parks. Her work has been in The New York Times and she has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning. She is based in Brooklyn, NY.
JoAnne McFarland
Open to Justice, 2024
Oil and cold wax on wooden panel, 18 x 18 x 1 inches
Manju Shandler
Privilege Does not Equal Justice, 2017
39 x 39 inches Framed
I create symbolic art that engages with the public. Building upon established storylines from history, myth, and contemporary culture, my mixed media artworks create a richly layered narrative reflective of our complicated times. Drawing on my background as a theatrical designer I am hopeful that my work will gently nudge the viewer to take stock of their own perceptions and the larger workings at play in the world.
These questions are paramount in my mind: As citizens, how do we unpack our nation’s complicated past and more pressing future without becoming uprooted from our foundational ideals of Liberty, Justice, Freedom, and Equality for all? As artists, how do we create symbols that will inspire and enlighten?
Manju Shandler is an internationally exhibited visual artist who regularly shows in New York City. She was honored to have 850 paintings from her series GESTURE exhibited at The September 11th Memorial & Museum from 2016-2017.
She is the creator and curator of the Upstate art venue, The Barn on Berme as well as The Old Stone House’s current exhibition, America the Beautiful.
Manju Shandler’s visual art has received numerous awards including University of Rhode Island’s Sea Grant for Visual Artists and The Art Asset Award. Her Puppet/Costume Design has received an Emmy Nomination, Innovative Theatre Award, a Jim Henson Foundation Grant and was an Emerging Artist at the Eugene O’Neill Puppetry Conference.
Dale Williams
Profiles for Democracy
Pregnant Woman, Kneel, Be Safe, and Nothing, 2019
Acrylic, charcoal, and colored pencil on paper, each 36 x 24 inches
These four paintings are from a group of 50 similar works called Profiles for Democracy. The formality of the profile portrait compelled me to invent distinctions of character broad enough to suggest a large and varied populace. These portraits embodied my concern at the demise of democratic ideals and growing partisan intolerance in the year prior to the 2020 presidential election, a concern even more urgent today. One painting in the series contains lines from a poem by the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam: ‘live quiet and consoled / in gaudy poverty, powerful destitution.’ I pictured the endurance of these imaginary citizens.
My imagery has an apparent psychological and personal nature, but I am most interested in how to embody our social reality in my work – to show the changing American moment as if seen from inside out. Cézanne reputedly said of his art, ‘The landscape thinks itself in me – I am its consciousness.’ My hope is that my art serves as a conduit from the unconscious of our shared world.
Dale Williams is a visual artist working in painting, drawing, and book arts. The focus of much of his work is hybrid figures that freely exhibit an antic vulnerability. He has shown his art in New York City and its environs for over 30 years, and it has appeared in many literary journals in print and online. In 2014 he was the recipient of a fellowship in Printmaking/Drawing/Book Arts from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Williams studied art at The Cooper Union, Hunter College, and California Institute of the Arts.
Manju Shandler
Where’s Our White Horse? 2016
38 x 38 inches framed
JoAnne McFarland
Selfie With Lilies, 2021
Oil on linen mounted on wooden panel, 40 x 40 x 2 inches
The two qualities that most define American culture for me are stunning violence and stunning innovation. This is no accident. I believe that violence and creativity are opposites—wherever there’s a lot of one, there will be the capacity for a lot of the other. My practice is founded on doing one creative thing every day to thwart the relentless violence I see, hear, and feel all around me. In this way I’m a contemporary American Revolutionary, responding to our age’s unique threats and supercharged invention.
Dolls have been my muses for over twenty years as I’ve developed my oil painting technique, clarifying my thoughts about self-worth and personal agency. My practice is built around my desire to live the most vivid life possible, on my own terms. The dolls radiate complex psychological states, and allude to both traditional portraits and omnipresent meticulously curated digital images.
JoAnne McFarland is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and independent curator from Brooklyn. Her poetry collections include: American Graphic, winner of the Wishing Jewel Prize for poetic innovation, Green Linden Press 2024; A Domestic Lookbook and Pullman, Grid Books 2024 and 2023; and Identifying the Body, the Word Works, 2018. JoAnne has artwork in the permanent collections of the Cooper/Hewitt Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, the Columbus Museum of Art, and the Department of State, among many others.
JoAnne’s artwork is represented by Accola Griefen Fine Art.
Demarcus McGaughey
America the Beautiful, 2023
Mixed media on canvas, 11×14 inches
McGaughey specializes in a mixed media style that combines acrylic painting, paper collage, photography, and inherited fabrics from his grandmother’s quilt collection. His portraiture work reveals triumphant tales of African American subjects who have manifested their destiny with a particular focus on the eyes, the window to the soul.
This elixir of artistic elements allows him to express the spectrum of moods among his subjects. Through painting he discovered an avenue to tell stories, his way. His vibrant portraits capture elements of his world travels, his family, and his community. Each painting, a statement to the world, declares, “I see you and I hear you.”
Demarcus McGaughey (b.1975) a Texas native and New York-based mixed media artist, passionately captures the beauty, strength, and vibrancy of
people of color. Inspired by Barkley Hendricks, who famously painted Black people in all their coolness, McGaughey portrays his people in a larger-than-life display. Throughout his 20-year art career, McGaughey has worked with prestigious brands and organizations, including Beyoncé Knowles Carter and beverage giant Dr Pepper. His work has been highlighted in numerous magazines, museums and galleries stateside in New York, Texas, and globally in Spain. He has completed art residencies with Mas el Sigols in Barcelona, Nfinit Foundation Arts Residency in Brooklyn, Art Crawl Harlem in New York, Chateau Orquevaux in France, Ma’s House in South Hamptons, NY and Willowhouse in Terlingua, TX.
Demarcus McGaughey
Left: Facts of Life, 2025
Mixed media on canvas, 20 x 20 inches
Right: Big Momma’s House, 2025
Mixed media on canvas, 20 x 16 inches
Esperanza Cortés
Conversion, 2024
Personal embroidery, crystal beads, acrylic on wood panel, 24 x 24 inches
Esperanza Cortés is a Colombian born multidisciplinary artist based in New York City. Cortés’ passion for the mosaic of the Americas, its folk art traditions, rituals, music, dance and their ever evolving changes are at the core of her sculptures, paintings, installations, site-specific projects and interventions. Her artwork examines the extent to which a consciousness—national or personal—defines itself through the opposing force of transcultural experiences. The work is poetically and intricately crafted to encourage the viewer to reconsider social and historical narratives, especially when dealing with Colonialism, and raises critical questions about the politics of erasure and exclusion.
Esperanza Cortés is an internationally exhibited artist. She has attended many artists’ residencies and has been reviewed extensively. Her awards include: Guggenheim Fellowship, Hispanic Society Museum Artist Research Fellowship, New York State Council on the Art, City Artist Corps Grant, BRIC Media Arts Fellowship, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant, Art in Embassies, and New York Foundation for the Arts.
Esperanza Cortés
Forced Bloom, 2020
Clay sculpture, encaustic, glass beads, crystal, personal embroidery, and board 24 inches round
Fay Ku
The Great Parade, 2019
Graphite, ink, gouache and watercolor on gray Stonehenge, 22 x 30 inches
My work, while not autobiographical, is informed by my experiences as a woman and immigrant, as well as my interests in language, culture, histories and mythologies across various cultures. I experienced my Taiwanese/Chinese culture through the Mandarin language we spoke at home, the food we ate, and my parents’ stories. My father, an amateur historian, regaled me with age-inappropriate tales, from the Cultural Revolution or of palace intrigue from dynastic China; I was from an early age aware of people’s darker impulses and motivation.
I am at heart a drawer, though I often use materials and processes not traditionally associated with drawing. Whatever the media, I create worlds inhabited by women and children engaged in often troubling or even demonic behaviors. I am inspired by many historical techniques and styles—especially traditional East Asian art—but my narratives draw from contemporary concerns. They explore cultural, sexual, and political identities, power dynamics, social, familial and internal conflicts—in short, the full spectrum of human experience.
The Great Parade conflates internalized stories with memories of Taiwan, a young democracy with its caravans of people on tiny trucks with megaphones and pre-recorded chants announcing weddings, funerals and political campaigns.
Fay Ku is a Taiwan-born, New York City-based artist whose work is figurative and narrative and connects with past and present cultural histories. She is the recipient of a 2007 Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant, 2009 NYFA fellowship recipient and a finalist in 2023. Her solo exhibitions include Honolulu Museum of Art (Honolulu, Hawaii), Marlboro College (Marlboro, VT), New Britain Museum of American Art (New Britain, CT) and Snite Museum of Art (South Bend, IN), and she was included in the recent Brooklyn Artists Exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. She is currently an artist-in-resident at the nearby Textile Art Center in Gowanus, Brooklyn.
This exhibition is made possible, in part, by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
