Art Forward

Featuring saturated acrylic colors on hand-woven textile, Sherrod’s art takes patience. “As a lifelong Oklahoman, I’ve gone through many waves in my own complex relationship with this state,” Sherrod says. “I welcome the reminder of how much Oklahoma has to offer and the opportunity to discover new voices.”

Dallas is a fifth-generation Oklahoman, and her family history comes to life in her mixed-media pieces and large murals adorning multiple buildings in Oklahoma City. Her work You Cannot Erase Us is an interactive wall puzzle. “[This work] highlights the contributions of Black communities across Oklahoma—Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Boley, Oklahoma City’s Deep Second, and more,” Dallas says.

Hong’s installation No Mother Tongue is informed by her experience immigrating from China to Oklahoma, where she lived for her first six years in the U.S. “It has been a life-altering experience for me to return to this region and to make No Mother Tongue in the same landscape that I first knew as a child,” Hong says. “I’m different from who I once was. I consider identity in the same way that I work with materials in the studio. They only interest me when they are malleable.”

In 2023, Ehrenfried moved to Oklahoma City from Brooklyn, New York. His paintings are a direct reflection of his transition from the Big Apple to the Great Plains. “Being a recent transplant to this state has complicated this feeling for me. I know that my time in Oklahoma has directly impacted my work in a way that has brought me closer to this community,” says Ehrenfried.

Jones’ ArtNow piece, Quadraphonic Spring 2.0, is an installation graphically mapping and mutating a sacred New Mexican hot spring onto the interior surfaces of a suspended paper dome. “I hope this experience is profound and, when coupled with the relatively low-tech nature of the paper material itself, provides a direct and workable framework for finding frequency with other people and places,” Jones says.

Filipinx-American artist Bajuyo’s ArtNow piece Loop: Curve of Constant Change, turns trash into treasure inviting viewers to consider the memories and identities tied to what gets thrown away. “The boundaries that define Oklahoma—geographic, political, and psychological—echo many of the themes I explore through sculptural forms: tension, transition, containment, and release,” Bajuyo says.

LeSeur’s work ponders identity, grief, and joy through the eyes of a queer Black woman. Her multi-media approach explores the important role of music in the African Diaspora.

Oklahoma City-based Knick wants her art to create a sense of joy and wonder. Her inflatable sculptures are “a form of abstract painting meets fiber art meets blow-up decor.”

“With my work, I invite the audience to reflect on how time is experienced and how each moment, no matter how fleeting, has its own unique quality,” says sound artist and guitar player Joseph.

Miller’s installations use woodcut relief prints, sculpture, and mixed media to explore environmental themes and relationships.

Barboza’s work is drawn from his personal experiences. “As someone who immigrated to the U.S. at a young age, I spent years suppressing my heritage to fit into American suburbia,” the Costa Rica-born artist says. “This work [exhibited in ArtNow] is about that split. The innocent nostalgia of growing up in a new culture, and the darker undercurrents of what gets left behind in the process.”

Iranian-American artist Sohrabian chose pieces from her “drawing paintings” series to display at ArtNow, including Between the Lines, which “reflects the complexity of a woman’s personality.”

Griffin is a photographer based in Oklahoma City with a passion for documenting the natural world. Her work has been displayed at the Atlas of Humanity in Paris and the Oklahoma State Capitol.

Mattern’s work looks to bend the rules and challenge the norms as generative AI becomes more commonplace in photography. “It is essential for artists to resist the low-hanging fruit and find their own vision,” Mattern says.

Geul is originally from the Netherlands, but for the past two decades she has called Oklahoma home. Her work combines acrylic, embroidery, and thread on canvas. “I’ve often felt I exist between worlds—culturally, visually, and emotionally. This exhibition offers an opportunity to explore and celebrate the complexity of what it means to belong,” Geul says.

“Living in Oklahoma has definitely affected my understanding of the influence natural-resource management has on culture, and my time here has had a major impact on my artistic practice,” Becker says. She has spent the past five years in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Her silk-screen works borrow and distort seventeenth-century Dutch still-life paintings.

Originally from New Mexico, Wesley now resides in Norman, Oklahoma. He describes his work as impressionist surrealism with Mvskoke and Kiowa aesthetics. For ArtNow, Wesley will showcase three acrylic paintings. “I always hope people enjoy the paintings, whether they are disruptive or harmonious,” Wesley says.

As a mixed-media artist, illustrator, and designer with many projects going at once, Salame wears a lot of hats. The Oklahoma City-based artist says his participation in ArtNow is an opportunity to join his peers in facilitating connection through art. “I hope people leave with the understanding that we share experiences and feelings.”

Cox combined her talents as an artist and musician to create a CRT-TV wall display playing a pair of music videos by her Oklahoma City-based quartet, stepmom. “Oklahoma holds complex layers of history and culture, and being part of this conversation through my work feels both personal and powerful,” Cox says.

Anderson’s works feature hand-embroidery and fabric on canvas standing seven feet tall. Lilacs mingle with images of the artist’s maternal grandmother, exploring her family lineage. “Relating my experiences of being Vietnamese-American adds not only to our stories of who we are as Oklahomans but also broadens the narrative about Vietnamese-Americans,” Anderson says.

Colombian-American multidisciplinary artist Sanders de Melo “strives to create ceramic work and installations that speak to the resiliency of the human spirit,” despite living with visual impairment. Sanders de Melo utilizes Braille on porcelain as a way of telling stories, encouraging meditation, and creating space for grieving and healing.

Crafting elaborate sweaters and other clothing items under the imprint I’d Knit That, with more than 150,000 followers on Instagram, Ross updates a family tradition by combining art, fashion, and social commentary. “The women in my family, who shared similar experiences growing up in Oklahoma, taught me craft traditions that I now use to create art,” Ross says. “They likely never imagined their work would be shown in a setting like this, so it’s exciting to carry forward their legacy through my own practice.”

I Bear the Fruit of My Ancestors, by Vietnam-born, Tulsa-raised artist Phạm, is an installation paying tribute to the quiet, ongoing labor of cultural preservation. “Each year, on the anniversary of a loved one’s passing (ngày giỗ), Vietnamese families gather to celebrate their lives, not with mourning but with remembrance, food, and gratitude. Through this installation, I honor that tradition and welcome my ancestors into the life they made possible for me,” says Phạm.

An associate professor of painting and printmaking at the University of Oklahoma, Begaye recognizes the land and its Indigenous caretakers in his work. While his work has been exhibited in New Zealand, Argentina, Paraguay, and around the globe, the Navajo artist says there’s a special pride in being part of ArtNow. “People have worked hard to elevate the art scene in Oklahoma,” Begaye says. “I am very honored to be a part of this exhibition. It means your work is being recognized as being exhibited among the many talented artists of Oklahoma.”

Made out of steel, wood, fabric, and found objects, Duong and Friedman’s ever-evolving sculpture, I give to you a piece of me, will be in its third stage of life. Viewers will now be able to walk inside the immersive work and find a space to reflect and shed the baggage of the outside world. “We hope visitors come away a bit lighter from our installation,” Friedman says. “It is meant to free, to lift the weight of hardships, to open the flood gates of life.”