Art Gallery

Past Featured Artists Exhibits

CAHOKIA
Restoring the Balance: Rematriating Indigenous Lands

October 7, 2022 – January 31, 2023
GateWay Community College
Center for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion |  Main Building – MA1189
108 N. 40th Street  |  Phoenix, AZ 85034

Cahokia SocialTech + ArtSpace has partnered with Local Matriarch and GateWay Community College to showcase a collection of artworks by a group of local and regional Indigenous artists and to create capacity building programming specially crafted for emerging artists.

This project is made possible with the support of GateWay Community College andwith the additional support of Cahokia’s members, ambassadors and community.

Artist Statement 

RESTORING THE BALANCE: Rematriating Indigenous Lands explores the ways in which Indigenous peoples are nurturing the sacred and reciprocal relationships between people and land. This exhibition features the works of an intergenerational group of Indigenous artists coming together to build community, share stories, and preserve ancestral traditions. Through their voices and perspectives, this exhibition delves in themes of rematriation, indigeneity, migration and the importance of land.

Featuring Artists

• Tiffany Enos
• Richelle Key
• Gloria Martinez-Granados
• Cora Quiroz
• Selina Scott
• J Stanley
• Laurie Steelink
• Melissa Yazzie

Cahokia SocialTech + ArtSpace is an Indigenous-led platform for creative placekeeping. To learn more visit cahokiaphx.com

This event is sponsored by GateWay’s U.S. Department of Education Title V Hispanic Serving Institution grant ÉXITO (#P031S190167).

"Blackbird Fly" Exhibit

April 8 – September 30, 2022

A Collection of Works by Antoinette Cauley

“Blackbird Fly'' is an exploration into how artist Antoinette Cauley’s relocation from Phoenix, Arizona (U.S.A.) to Berlin, Germany during the Covid-19 pandemic has influenced and reshaped her views on systemic racism, her home country, and her overall identity as a biracial Black woman. Created during the course of two years, this series delves into childhood trauma and psychological triggers relating to abandonment, survival and hyper independence in youth and their connection to time and place.

Referencing The Beatles “Blackbird”, a song about a group of Black American women during the civil rights era, this body of work speaks to the long term effects of trauma (both generationally and individually) and the systemic barriers it creates for members of the Black American community specifically. Through the images of young black girls and women covered in tattoos along with bright city landscapes, this work outwardly correlates the black childhood experience with the consequences of living in a society riddled with systemic racism and a history of extreme violence against the people of the global majority.

By referencing Black youth in combination with Black hood feminism, this series also explores the common social tropes that exist within the Black community; specifically, the single parent household of black children. 65% of Black children in America live in a one parent household and more commonly stay with their mothers. As a result, this often leads to hyper independence and self sufficiency in children within our communities. This work looks to reference this cultural phenomenon with the intention of raising awareness about very layered issues that stem from hundreds of years of oppression, slavery and violent injustices against Black Americans.

To see more of Antoinette’s paintings, see antoinettecauley.com.

If you missed Antoinette's lecture, or just want to know more about the works on display, we encourage you to watch the recording of her Visiting Artist Lecture (password: GWSpeaks2022).

Artworks by Susan Mills

Faculty, Arts, Humanities, Social & Behavioral Sciences Division | GWCC

A practicing sculptor with a national show record and outdoor permanent pieces in Arizona and Nevada, Professor Mills designed and equipped the indoor/outdoor Art Studio at GateWay Community College which includes a foundry, forge, 5,000 lb lifting cranes and full ceramics, painting and drawing studios. From 2009-2018, Mills directed the International Study Abroad Program in Prague, Czech Republic. In the summer of 2014, she was accepted as a Visiting Artist/Scholar at the American Academy in Rome. 

To purchase Susan’s paintings, please contact mills@gatewaycc.edu.

Artworks by Geoff Reed

Photographer  |  Geoff Reed Photo

For over forty years, Geoff Reed has provided corporate, editorial, travel and adventure photographs of people on location for business and consumer publications. In addition to his commercial work, Geoff teaches courses in commercial and portrait photography at the Glendale and Phoenix Community Colleges. Since 2016, he has taught digital photography in Prague, Berlin, and Vienna through the Gateway and Chandler-Gilbert Community College International Study Abroad summer program. 

Geoff has lived and traveled extensively in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the United States. His interest in travel photography stems from his early years growing up in India, France, and Burundi. Visit Geoff’s website geoffreedphoto.com or email him: geoff@geoffreedphoto.com to purchase his new book or prints.

Artworks by Amber Pfeifer

Student  |  GWCC

I view the world and try to interpret what I see through images, shapes, swishes, and doodles. I recognize patterns of light and dark, and the many grays in between. Drawing from life, while challenging, can be its own reward. While the result of the drawing is not perfect it can never be what I see; the result was never the intent. Sometimes it’s just the simple act of sitting down and seeing what I can come up with today. I can’t think of a better pursuit than the simple act of creating something new; even if it was inspired by something old: momento mori.

Artworks by Elizabeth Overall 

Student  |  GWCC

Architecture, spiritual iconography, and history are the focus of my work on a current collaborative project titled Alternative Visions of Prague. The two images submitted for this exhibit are from that body of work. Created using the cyanotype process, Prussian blue was the perfect choice to express my vision of Prague evoking a sense of spirituality, melancholy, and peaceful beauty, I can think of no other way to share my experience of this beautiful city.