Past Events

Opening Reception with the artists: Saturday, May 18, 6 – 8 p.m.

Arizona is known for the saguaro cacti that populate much of the state – and whose bloom is the state flower – but it is also home to a wide variety of other plant life. This exhibition will display paintings, ceramics, and other multi-media artworks depicting and inspired by botanicals from inside and outside the state.

Image: Tashina Knight, South Chandler Prickly Pears, Acrylic on Canvas, 2019, 18" x 14"

Opening reception: Thursday, April 18, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. (awards announced at 6:00)

Chandler Unified School District’s most gifted artists put their work on display for the community to experience in this annual showcase. The burgeoning artists from Basha, Hamilton, Perry, Erie, Casteel and Chandler high schools display their talents and viewpoints through paintings, drawings, sculptures, jewelry, and photographs. With over 100 works on display, there is always something for everyone in this exhibition.

Image: Censored Perfection, by Megan Fargher. 2018 best in show winner for the 2-dimensional category.

Opening Reception with the Artists:

TOGETHER features artworks by photographer Kari Wehrs and sculptor Nathaniel Lewis, exhibiting alongside one another for the first time. Wehrs’s series “Shot” is comprised of tintype photographs of recreational shooters she meets in the Arizona desert. Nathaniel Lewis’s sculptures examine divisive political topics and concepts of otherness with a tongue-in-cheek humor. Presented side by side, these artists’ work force us to examine the boundaries, some natural, some fabricated, between “us” and “them.”

Reception with the Artists: Friday, March 8, 6 - 8 p.m.

Painstaking attention to detail, ornate organic curves, and meditative studio practices unite the works of Dani Godreau and Vivienne Lux in the exhibition Meticulously Maximal. Godreau’s crowded, repetitive, cut paper patterns become challenges to gendered labor expectations upon closer inspection, and Lux’s bright, hand-drawn swirls that may first appear as simple colorful designs reveal layers of rococo-styled typography with careful examination. The exhibition will feature papercuts by Godreau and drawings and fashions by Lux, all equally mesmerizing to viewers both new and familiar to these artists’ practice.

Image: Vivienne Lux, Rise, 2018, colored pencil on paper, 12" x 12"

Reception Honoring Glenn McCollum: Saturday, February 23, 6 - 8 pm

Modern Phoenix Week Event: Friday, March 22, 5 - 8 pm

In celebration of Chandler’s mid-century architects, architecture, and road culture, Chandler photographer, curator and mid-century home owner Holly Metz highlights our unexpected mid-century gems through vivid contemporary and historic photos.

Image: Holly Metz, Aloha Motel, 2018

Reception with the Artists: Friday, January 25, 2019, 6 - 8 p.m.

Pastel color palettes, uncommon vantage points, and attention to detail are the common threads between the paintings of Autumn Rose and Barbara Kemp Cowlin. Autumn Rose's varied line weights and flat perspectives transform her paintings of desert botanical still lives into airy abstractions, creating a peaceful plenitude in her otherworldly canvasses. Barbara Kemp Cowlin finds underappreciated details in the corners of domestic and public architecture, creating Spartan, angular compositions that feel simultaneously new and familiar. Together, both artists' distinctive points of view remind viewers that whether we are looking at abundance or scarcity, there is more to be seen if we only look harder.

Reception with the Artists: Friday, January 11, 6 - 8 p.m.

Have you ever imagined what the future holds? Tacos for dinner? How about further down the road? Now you don’t have to!  Funkhouser and Hurwitz present you a glimpse of our fate in Futureland, Arizona: An Art Show. In one of the hottest upcoming destinations, visitors summit artificially formed future mountains, wander through mutant species of cacti with a trusty field guide, and watch the beautiful sun filter through centuries of one time use plastics! For those who desire to fill their cultural coffers, the cutting edge of future fashions and the relics of our ancestor’s technology will also be on display. At the end of the day, sit back, relax and watch the amazing sunset that only Futureland, Arizona can provide. A future vacation destination, coming to you at Vision Gallery, Chandler in 2019!

Opening Reception with the artists: Saturday, November 17, 4:00 – 6:00 p.m.

Now in its twenty-third year, the Art Quilts exhibition at the Chandler Center for the Arts has grown from a regional quilt show to a respected vehicle for contemporary works. The exhibition draws entries from around the United States and Canada and allows thousands of visitors each year to experience quilting as an art form. This year’s juror is ASU Assistant Professor Erika Lynne Hanson, and the theme she has chosen is Artistic Ecologies. Starting with the definition of ecology as the interrelationship between any system and its environment, quilts in this exhibition will be inspired by the theme formally, conceptually, and narratively.

Image: Frances Oldham Murphy • Emiliania huxliyi, 2018 • 41" x 47"