This year’s 2nd Annual LGBTQ+ Art Showcase, presented in partnership with Reading Pride Celebration and GoggleWorks Center for the Arts, is a juried group exhibition featuring over 20 artists from the Berks County and surrounding regions. This showcase aims to celebrate the beauty, resilience, and artistic talent found within this diverse community.
The artworks within this showcase were selected by a panel of jurors and will be considered for awards that will be placed during the award ceremony on June 9th, 2024. Visitors will be invited to vote in the gallery for their favorite artwork, which will then be considered for the Community Choice Award, between the dates of May 30th – June 8th.
This Year's Exhibiting Artists
Sawyer Antoni, Ernesto Beckford, Julia Bruns, Lillian Cowan, Gregory Didyoung, Isabel Dill, Varvàra Fern, Jesse Futter, Melody Gonzalez, Laurie Hartranft, Emma Kauffman, Jae Kazmar, Lakeesha Mallory, Rowan Matchett, Faith Miravich, Evelynn Nowicki, Jacquelyn Rambo, Zairea Sailer, Zina Schittler, Daniel Schlenker, Lee Shannon, Carlos Vazquez, Elijah Velazquez-Henderson and Merrill Weber.
About the Jurors
Ashley Houston is the Director of Collections & Exhibitions at the Reading Public Museum in Reading, Pennsylvania. In this role, Houston oversees the planning and implementation of over one dozen exhibitions annually, a combination of those curated from The Museum’s permanent collection and nationally touring exhibitions. Highlights in recent years include: Danny Lyon: Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement (2024), In Nature’s Studio: Two Centuries of American Landscape Painting (2021), CUT! Costume and the Cinema (2019), and Across the Atlantic: American Impressionism Through the French Lens (2018). Houston also manages The Museum’s roster of touring exhibitions, sharing its mission to educate and enlighten on a national scale. Collections research and management rounds out her purview, with recent research culminating in the identification of both artist and patron of a pair of early 16th century German stained and painted glass windows from The Museum’s permanent collection.
A native of Berks County, PA, Houston holds an MA in Art Gallery and Museum Studies from the University of Leeds, United Kingdom, and an undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware.
Peter Flood | Community Programs Coordinator (he/him) is a Gettysburg College graduate with a major in anthropology and minors in history and religious studies. He has been at the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center for two years. He runs the Queer Gallery at the center and manages the community groups. His interests include reading and writing fiction with a focus on including LGBTQ+ people in genres like fantasy and science fiction. He thinks there are few things more enjoyable than curling up in front of the fire with a good book.
Gallery Reception & Award Ceremony
A Gallery Reception and Award Ceremony will be held in the Schmidt Gallery on Sunday June 9th, 2024 from 3-5pm.