Exhibit Visual Messages: Socially Engaged Art

The latest gallery installment at the Newark Arts Alliance ‘Visual Messages: Socially Engaged Art’, asks us to consider: how do we engage artistically with the world and our community?

This thought-provoking exhibit features 45 pieces from 25 different local artists depicting a wide variety of topics including the environment, homelessness, politics, world peace, and health. Media types range from traditional painting styles and materials to book constructions, paper assemblages, collage, stained glass, fabric, and beading with messages.

The guest Juror for this exhibition was Vanesa Simon. Vanesa is an entrepreneur, artist, and dedicated community organizer. Her personal experience with a cancer diagnosis led her to explore the intersection of the arts and health. In 2017, she piloted the program “Healing Through the Arts” and later innovated a fiscal partnership with the Delaware Art Museum through her company, Mariposa Arts.

As an artist, Vanesa’s work has reached an international audience. She has participated in exhibitions across Argentina, Barcelona, and New York City as part of an artist collective from Argentina whose focus is Artist’s Books. Her art has also been showcased in local exhibitions in her home state of Delaware. In 2024 she was selected as a Global South Arts & Health Envoy and has had the great honor of being nominated by President Joe Biden to the National Council on the Arts.