Upcoming Exhibitions

Joseph Clayes III Gallery & Carolyn Yorston-Wellcome Rotunda Gallery

HARVEST & GATHER: missed connections

April 26–July 19, 2025

Opening Reception: Friday, April 25, 5:30–7:30 PM

Gallery Walk-through with mika Castañeda and Cat Gunn: Saturday, April 26, at 2 PM, free

Panel Discussion: Wednesday, June 25, 6:30 PM (5:30–6 PM members-only reception; 6 PM general reception; 6:30 PM lecture)

Harvest & Gather is pleased to present missed connections, an exhibition that facilitates collaboration between artists who might have once worked together, but the stars did not align in their favor or their spirits could not quite connect. Each invited artist has selected another artist to exhibit with, thus fulfilling their missed connection at the Athenaeum. Moving beyond an exchange of glances but nothing more and the “you-smiled-at-me-on-the-subway-platform” prose of personal ads, Harvest & Gather seeks to allow the exhibiting artists a working opportunity to intimately connect with another artist’s work and practice. Artists are Deanna Barahona and Susan Aparicio; Katie Delaney and Elaine Fisher; Maria Antonia Eguiarte and Liz Nurenberg; and Stephen Rivas and A.R. Tran.

Harvest & Gather is an experimental, nomadic curatorial project founded by mika Castañeda & Cat Gunn in 2023. With an emphasis on creating makeshift spaces for art anywhere at any moment, the project exists beyond traditional galleries and museums through pop-up shows in various locations.

ARTISTS

Deanna Barahona is a first-generation multidisciplinary artist from Southern California working in text, photography, installation, and sculpture. Barahona examines subcultures that emerge in Southern California’s integration process with materials referencing architecture, adornments, and symbols within the homes of the Latin American diaspora. Barahona’s work has been in exhibitions at Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles; Bread + Salt, San Diego; Island 83 Gallery, New York City; Mandeville Gallery, La Jolla; Bakersfield Museum of Art; Two Rooms, San Diego; and Residencia 797, Guadalajara. She is set to participate in a group exhibition at Museo Raúl Anguiano in Guadalajara in the summer of 2024 and a solo exhibition at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art in 2025. Barahona holds a BA in visual arts from California State University, Bakersfield, and an MFA from the University of California, San Diego.

Susan Aparicio is a Southeast Los Angeles native, a daughter of Mexican and Honduran parents, and a visual artist experimenting in the mediums of stained glass, experimental video, and installation. Her stained-glass work explores worship, desire, and Latinidad-through-pop-culture-inspired imagery from the early 2000s to today, blending bling and beauty to make the fake feel real. Her works explore the complex relationship between reality and states of being, inviting viewers to reflect on their existence within our natural, digital, and consumer worlds. Her works have been exhibited at Leiminspace, Bellyman, LaPau Gallery, Charlie James Gallery, the California Museum, the Hudson River Museum, Texas Tech University, and Cal State Dominguez Hills, among others. Her work has been recognized by publications such as LVL3 Magazine and the Daily Bruin. Aparicio was a resident at Caldera Arts Residency and the Artists’ Cooperative Residency & Exhibitions (ACRE). She earned dual BA degrees in studio art and cognitive science from the University of Virginia in 2018. She then earned her MFA in art from UCLA in 2022. Aparicio is currently based in Pasadena.

Katie Delaney (they/them) is a queer, non-binary artist based in Philadelphia. Their practice questions the role of the gender binary in generational trauma by creating work within a “mythspace” that transfigures traditional storytelling. They hold an MFA from the University of Delaware (’24) and a BFA in sculpture from Towson University (’20). Their work has been exhibited internationally at Galería Municipal de Arte, Valparaíso, Chile; virtually at the Alternative Art School, Vox Populi; Grizzly Grizzly, Philadelphia; throughout the DMV, ICA Baltimore; Delaplaine Art Center, Frederick, Maryland; and The Hen House, Washington, D.C.

Elaine Fisher received her BA in archaeology and ancient history from the University of Liverpool in 1996 and her MFA from the University of Gloucestershire in 2015. She continues her research independently and collaboratively in the areas of art, archaeology, and depth psychology, through place-based residencies and commissions, including B-side Festival; SLUICE Exchange, Berlin; and most recently at The Florence Trust , London. In 2022 she was invited to exhibit her COVID project Domestic Structures at Project 1628 in Baltimore. Group exhibitions include Fibres at AIR Gallery, Manchester, UK; Garden Party by Latela Curatorial, Washington, D.C.; and Flat Files at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Baltimore. In 2024 Elaine was nominated for a Castlefield Gallery Award for her entry in the Manchester Open Exhibition at HOME, Manchester. She currently lives and works in Manchester.

Maria Antonia Eguiarte Souza is a Mexican American artist raised in Mexico City and based in San Diego. She engages in gesture-based performance and object making. Eguiarte has shown in group expeditions in both Mexico and the United States, including at the ICA San Diego, Patio Trasero, Brea Gallery, NIXON, Proxyco NYC, Working Title with Project Blank, the New Wight Gallery UCLA, and Museo Ex Teresa Arte Actual.

Liz Nurenberg (b. 1978) is a Los Angeles–based artist. She received a BFA from Grand Valley State University (2003) and a MFA from Claremont Graduate University (2010). Liz is an associate professor in the Foundation Department at Otis College of Art and Design. She is a member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid Los Angeles. Liz was awarded a fellowship to Ox-Bow School of Art and Artist Residency and a Helen B. Dooley Fellowship at Claremont Graduate University; she received a California Community Foundation Emerging Artist Grant. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally at such venues as the Holter Museum, Helena, Montana; Pasadena Armory Center for the Arts; Elephant Art Space, Los Angeles; HilbertRaum Gallery, Berlin; Galleri CC, Malmo, Sweden; and the Contemporary Calgary.

Stephen Rivas is an interdisciplinary artist raised in Palmdale, California. Working across photography, video, sound, and writing, Rivas creates deeply personal, multilayered works that interrogate intersections of history, identity, and resistance. His work often adopts an autobiographical lens, utilizing multi-channeled projections to weave narratives that explore memory, love, death, joy, anarchy, and the fleeting nature of time within his family’s collective history. Central to Rivas’s practice is the critique of colonial narratives and systems of power. By uncovering the preexisting “threads” of resistance and resilience within his family’s past—what he refers to as “weapons against empires”—Rivas reclaims stories that challenge dominant historical frameworks. As systemic oppression persists, Rivas sees focusing on past resistance as a method of preserving memory and a strategy for imagining liberated futures. His work highlights the connections between historical uprisings and contemporary struggles, emphasizing the enduring relevance of resilience and decentralized resistance.

Rivas’s installations invite viewers into a space where personal and political histories collide, emphasizing the importance of storytelling as a tool for survival and subversion. Rivas completed his BFA in 2019 at the California Institute of the Arts, where he began exploring themes of identity, migration, and memory. He later earned an MFA from the University of California, Irvine in 2023, further refining his interdisciplinary practice and conceptual approach.

A.R. Tran was born in Monterey Park, California, in 1993 and moved to New York in 2011 to attend New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. In 2015, he received his BA in Critical Race Theory and visual studies and was awarded the Finish Line Grant and Founder’s Day Award. That same year he was selected to participate in the Gallatin Arts Festival as a visual and performance artist. For more than five years, he worked in arts education and public programming for institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Mark Morris Dance Center and participated in a number of student shows at 205 Hudson Street. In 2020, he enrolled in the University of California, Irvine’s MFA program in art. There he developed his interdisciplinary art practice while taking PhD-level courses in Critical Race Theory and Black studies. In 2022, he was accepted into UC Irvine’s Pedagogical Fellowship program, was nominated for the Tom Angell Fellowship, and was named a Claire Trevor Society Scholar in Art. In spring 2023, he was awarded an Interdisciplinary Research residency at UC Irvine’s Experimental Media Performance Lab (xMPL) and his solo exhibition, entitled THE ROOT OF DESIRE IN VIOLENT AND I STILL WANT TO BE WANTED, opened at University Art Gallery in Irvine.

Catherine and Robert Palmer Gallery

20th ANNUAL SDSU ART COUNCIL SCHOLARSHIP EXHIBITION

May 17–July 26, 2025

Opening Reception: Saturday, May 17, 5:30–7:30 PM

The Athenaeum Art Center is proud to present an exhibition of artwork by graduate and upper-division undergraduate students of the School of Art and Design at San Diego State University. Since 2002, the SDSU Art Council has awarded scholarships to a select number of students who, in addition to the Council's financial support, receive the opportunity to present their artwork at the Athenaeum.

This year’s scholarship recipients and exhibiting artists are Carolina Danu, Sarah Garcia, Kaitlyn Hulslander, Harper Pam, and Bryce Wall.

Joseph Clayes III Gallery & Carolyn Yorston-Wellcome Rotunda Gallery

33rd ANNUAL JURIED EXHIBITION

July 26–October 18, 2025

Opening Reception: Friday, July 25, 5:30–7:30 PM

One of the most prestigious juried shows in San Diego, selected artists will exhibit their work in our galleries, receive excellent exposure, and mingle with both artists and art lovers at an opening reception. Prize winners, including the recipient of the Leslie Von Kolb Memorial Award, will be announced at the opening reception.

The call for entries for the Athenaeum's 33rd Annual Juried Exhibition will open April 1 through June 20, 2025. Artists may enter up to three different works for juror consideration for this exhibition, which will open July 26. Our juror this year is art historian and curator Malcolm Warner. Entry fee per artist is $15 for members and $20 for non-members. 

The 33rd Annual Juried Exhibition will be on view July 26 through October 18. Prize winners, including the recipient of the Leslie Von Kolb Memorial Award, will be announced at the opening reception on Friday, July 25, which will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Free and open to the public. Visit ljathenaeum.org/juried-exhibition for updates.

All entries must be submitted through the online portal: https://zfrmz.com/9X0M8bZNcCHChFhOvw52
The portal opens at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, April 1, 2025.

Catherine and Robert Palmer Gallery

HELENA WESTRA

August 9–October 25, 2025

Opening Reception: Saturday, August 9, 5:30–7:30 PM, during the Barrio Art Crawl

Check back soon for more information!

Joseph Clayes III Gallery & Carolyn Yorston-Wellcome Rotunda Gallery

inSITE

October 25, 2025–January 17, 2026

Opening Reception: Friday, October 24, 5:30–7:30 PM

Check back soon for more information!

Catherine and Robert Palmer Gallery

ATHENAEUM FACULTY SHOW

November 8, 2025–January 3, 2026

Opening Reception: Saturday, November 8, 5:30–7:30 PM, during the Barrio Art Crawl

The Athenaeum Faculty Show will include works by instructors who have taught at the Athenaeum's School of the Arts during the last year.