Quinlan Visual Arts Center in Gainesville asks artists to ask themselves: What is human?

September 26th, 2024

A statue of fish. — “In the Beginning” is a new group art exhibition at Quinlan Visual Arts Center in Gainesville, bringing together an international assembly of artists whose work explores fundamental human identity, as well as the ways our cultures distinguish themselves. (Courtesy of Alberto Brown)

From time immemorial, humans have made sense of their world through art. Early human paintings and glyphs on cave walls have been found all over the globe, in a demonstration of our fundamental likeness.

“In the Beginning” is a new group art exhibition at Quinlan Visual Arts Center in Gainesville, bringing together an international assembly of artists whose work explores fundamental human identity, as well as the ways our cultures distinguish themselves. The collection is on display now through Oct. 5, and Nairika Cornett, the executive director of the Quinlan Visual Arts Center, recently joined Lois Reitzes on “City Lights” to discuss the exhibition.

When Cornett began to put together the exhibition with curator Carlos Solis, one of the most important things they looked for was an extremely distinct sense of self and cultural place.

“One of the things that was very important to Carlos and myself was to get a multicultural group together that would speak in a unified voice in the language that we all understand and love — art,” she told Lois. They were after pieces that highlighted the commonalities between individuals, rather than the differences.

The group that they settled on for the final exhibition included 27 artists from 20 different countries, each working in their own chosen artistic medium.

More information can be found on Quinlan Visual Arts Center’s website.