Download to save or print the entire
season 22 calendar here.

See Grand Jury Award finalists and winners here.

Submit work to open projects here.

Find your way to the gallery, (map) here.

Order the season yearbook, the MEAs22, here.

main gallery + drawing room

FURNITURE
Works About Extensions of Architecture

A room is characterized by the furniture and fixtures inside of it. Fixtures tell you where you are. If you see a sink and refrigerator, know you are in the kitchen; a large formal table places you in a dining room. Crown that table with a chandelier and you are in a nice dining room.

Furniture’s aesthetic communicates as much as it functions—an industrial stainless-steel kitchen is easier to keep clean, and its smooth planes and sharp edges communicate exemplary spotlessness. Beds, chairs, and dressers become sites navigated to and around daily as we eat, cook, clean ourselves, organize, work, and rest.

Furniture’s construction is an art, its design a science. It is passed down, bought new, found in antique malls, repaired, refinished. It signifies class, purpose, and it changes features and make-up to suit a type of work done with it.

FURNITURE is an exhibit of artwork about the objects that make a space suitable for living—about its use, its design, its crafting, or about the events and work in our lives that happen around it. It includes both examples of furniture, as well as work made with, about, or depicting it.

For this exhibit 85 artists submitted 244 works from 31 states and 5 countries, including Canada, England, Italy, Luxembourg, and the United States. Twenty-three works by the following 18 artists from 15 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.

We are pleased to present works by:

Briana Babani
Red Hook, New York

Owen Buffington
Orlando, Florida

Nomaki Etsu
Jersey City, New Jersey

Sarazen Haile
Nashville, Tennessee

Scott Ingram
Atlanta, Georgia

Stewart Junge
Andover, Massachusetts

Delia Lopez
West Allis, Wisconsin

Thomas McIntyre
Gatlinburg, Tennessee

James Nelson
Woodinville, Washington

Kareem Obey
Richmond, Virginia

CoCo Ree Lemery
Evanston, Illinois

Julian Rodriguez
Providence, Rhode Island

Edward L. Rubin
Los Angeles, California

Ross Silverman
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Jason Turnidge
Kent, Ohio

Ira Upin
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Shu Wang
Clawson, Michigan

Roscoe Wilson
Hamilton, Ohio

Briana Babani

Roscoe Wilson

Edward L. Rubin

parallel space

LOST ARTS
Works By or About Legacy Creative Processes

A lost art is a skill or process that has fallen out of use: wet-plate colloidal photography, punch-card coding, cursive writing. As technologies develop, old ways of doing things fall out of memory in favor of what is newer, more fashionable, faster, or cheaper. The world moves on, leaving behind the detritus of tools and machines made to complete work that is no longer done. The knowledge of how to process film, how to weave, to mix egg-tempera paint, takes on a sacred, rarified, or even provincial quality.

Where does the knowledge go when the industrial, technologically-advanced world thinks it doesn’t need it anymore? How has being forgotten freed it? Who are the stewards of these lost arts?

LOST ARTS is an exhibit of work made about or using skills and materials the world may have moved on from, but still contain depth of potential, and unappreciated value.

For this exhibit 67 artists submitted 204 works from 25 states and 3 countries, including Canada, France, and the United States. Fourteen works by the following 9 artists from 8 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.

Presenting works by:

Seder Burns
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Teela DeLeon
Olympia, Washington

Susan Ewing
Oxford, Ohio

Rick Finn
Cincinnati, Ohio

Perry Johnson
Cookeville, Tennessee

Joseph Matty
Mishawaka, Indiana

Tom Mazzullo
Westminster, Colorado

Michael Nichols
Bowling Green, Kentucky

Mariana Smith
Galloway, New Jersey

Rick Finn

Perry Johnson

Susan Ewing

central gallery

IMPRESSIONS OF BEING
A Two-Person Exhibit of Paintings by Lauren Adams and Craig Cully

In considering proposals submitted for this exhibition period Manifest's team realized it had a special opportunity to craft a rare two-person show featuring two bodies of compatible, contrasting, yet highly unique works by two noteworthy artists. We are grateful that Lauren and Craig accepted our invitation to join forces in this combined presentation of their work.

Lauren Adams

Lauren Adams, an oil painter based in Knoxville, Tennessee, earned her BFA in Art Education with a concentration in painting from The University of South Carolina. She dedicated 20 years to teaching visual art in East Tennessee public schools. Her painting techniques are deeply rooted in Flemish and Dutch archival oil methods, which she continues to employ, even though her subjects often deviate from traditional themes.

In her current series, The Nocturnal Landscapes, she explores the nature of what a landscape can define by using photos sent to her from loved ones of the marks they have left from their previous night’s sleep. These landscapes are an homage to the amazing dream realm traveled during slumber and the traces of which are left in the physical world. She takes comfort in the fact that the subject of sleep and dreaming is a universal activity that transcends time, class, race, religion, or location on the globe. Her paintings are visual representations of the mystery of sleep, dreams, memory, and the beauty in even the most transitory actions.

Of her work Adams states:

A ring on the coffee table left from a glass of water, a canyon-like divot in the sheet of a bed, or the impression left on one’s soul by words softly exchanged; such traces of our daily activities are left by each experience we have and action we take. They range from subtle to monumental in both observation and opinion. Sometimes, the more subtle the impression, the more beautiful.

As a painter, I explore the over-looked marks people leave in their beds while sleeping. Referencing photos sent to me by loved ones, I hone in on areas that resonate with me. They look like cascading rivers, valleys, or even roads journeyed through our dreams. These intimate marks, sculpted in fabric, are ephemeral fossils. They are impressions of memory, nocturnal landscapes. Through painting, composition and creation, I honor each nocturnal recharge and journey.

Craig Cully

Craig Cully grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia where some of his earliest influences came from the area’s long-standing tradition of realist painters. He began his painting studies with his godmother at the age of five and continued to pursue art throughout his primary school education. He graduated with a BFA degree from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and earned an MFA from The University of Arizona.

Cully’s work has been featured in gallery and museum exhibitions throughout the United States and in Mexico. His work is part of the permanent collection of The Boise Museum of Art, The Tucson Museum of Art, The University of Arizona Museum of Art, the University of Sciences and Arts of Oklahoma, and the Museum of Art at Texas Tech University. Currently, his work is represented by the Stewart Gallery in Boise, ID.

Being committed to the power of the visual image, and the desire for art-making to be embraced and respected, Cully also teaches. He is a Professor of Painting and Drawing at New Mexico State University.

Cully divides his time throughout the year living and working along side his wife Kelly and their two goofy basset hounds, Hildagard and Agatha, in both Tucson and Las Cruces.

Of his work Cully states:

When my father passed away due to complications from heart surgery I realized that, despite many attempts over the years, I was never able to capture his likeness in a portrait. He always remained elusive to me, distant in a way I could never quite define; yet his presence lingerd.

Losing a parent left me unmoored. With one less person to hold expectations of me, one less source of unconditional concern, I felt a shift. I had been cut loose from an anchor that once kept me morally grounded, untethered from my irreprochable center.

This became the catalyst to create a series of intimate portraits of men in my life who embody ideals I aspire to, though I retain elements that complicate a complete connection. They became, in a sense, patriarchs by proxy.

This exhibition was curated and selected from among 135 proposals submitted in consideration for Manifest’s 22nd season.

Lauren Adams

Lauren Adams

Craig Cully

Craig Cully

north gallery

TOOLS

A tool has a function. It extends the hand, allowing us to accomplish something that our body cannot do alone. It can be as simple as a stick employed to dig into the earth, or possess the technical sophistication of a particle accelerator blasting electrons along a path. We use these machines, equipment, and devices of varying complexity to create, to move, and to power. They are the things we employ for our labor.

A tool can become an icon representing the work or role of the user—certain jobs or careers come to mind when you think of a pencil, a stethoscope, a needle, a pipette, a gun. A tool can be intangible when it is a tactic employed for education or social work. An idea is a tool when it is wielded.

TOOLS is a collection of works that are about, depict, or whose making directly reflects tools, equipment, machinery, or devices we use to accomplish things.

For this exhibit 168 artists submitted 482 works from 41 states, Washington D.C., and 11 countries, including Canada, Guatemala, India, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Pakistan, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Ukraine, and the United States. Fifteen works by the following 13 artists from 5 states, Switzerland, and the Netherlands were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication

Presenting works by:

Kristen Cliffel
Lakewood, Ohio

Yazmin Dababneh
Imlay City, Michigan

Daniel Dallmann
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Andrea Eckert
Detroit, Michigan

Ruoxi Hua
New York, New York

Lauren Kalman
Detroit, Michigan

Jeannette Knigge
Deventer, The Netherlands

Julia LaBay
Toledo, Ohio

Zachary Noble
Asheville, North Carolina

Nicholas Roberts
Telford, Pennsylvania

Jaye Schlesinger
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Nicolas Vionnet
Mönchaltorf, Switzerland

Nate Weiss
Johnstown, Pennsylvania

Nicholas Roberts

Jaye Schlesinger

Nicolas Vionnet

main gallery + drawing room

GLIMMER
Epiphanies from within the Mundane

In the repetition of the everyday, the smallest glimmer can cut through like a bolt of lightning—or arrive more gently, through a subtle but irrevocable shift. A whisper. Despite its brevity, it appears at just the right moment to change you. And changed, you may see everything differently.

Glimmers usually come unbidden. They find us in the shower, while preparing a meal, walking the dog, sweeping the studio floor. Magic arises from the mundanity of life—the neutral backdrop against which something unexpected and transformative can emerge. These flashes of the divine reach us when we are open enough, still enough, to receive them.

GLIMMER is an exhibition of artworks that emerge from or reflect on such moments of insight—when the everyday becomes fertile ground.

For this exhibit 87 artists submitted 281 works from 24 states and 3 countries, including China, Germany, and the United States. Twenty-one works by the following 13 artists from 8 states and Germany were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.

We are pleased to present works by:

Duncan Anderson
Berlin, Germany

Dylan Bannister
Rock Hill, South Carolina

Jean Benvenuto
Portsmouth, Virginia

Clay Castellano
Chicago, Illinois

Teela DeLeon
Olympia, Washington

Lori Esposito
Columbus, Ohio

Frederick Fochtman
Columbus, Ohio

Courtney Lockhart
Tulsa, Oklahoma

Guennadi Maslov
West Chester, Ohio

RD Mitchell
Plano, Texas

Julia Paul
Blacksburg, Virginia

Erin Wozniak
Canton, Ohio

Denise Yaghmourian
Phoenix, Arizona

Lori Esposito

Erin Wozniak

parallel space

JUBILEE
Works About Celebration

Roaring is the sound of a thousand clapping hands.

The moment of victory is brief. When oxygen finally settles in our lungs, we step back to take in the monument of our achievement—tangible proof of choice, perseverance, and resolve. Reality wavers. Vindication hardens into history, marked by the sweet crack and whistle of fireworks.

Though fleeting, celebration echoes. It lingers in the inescapable glint of glitter, in the aching muscles that worked too hard for too long, in works of art that commemorate, symbolize, or embody the moment.

JUBILEE is an exhibit about celebration—about grit, survival, and the moment struggle shifts into triumph. Whether formal or symbolic, descriptive or expressive, quiet or thunderous, personal or collective, this exhibition shares work that honors the exhale, the spark, the reverberation of having made it through and marking history.

For this exhibit 26 artists submitted 60 works from 12 states and 3 countries, including England, Italy, and the United States. Eight works by the following 8 artists from 7 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.

Presenting works by:

Josephine Alexander
Ashland, Mississippi

Ren Buchness
Tucson, Arizona

Marguerite Dreyer
Auburn, Alabama

Omer Izgec
Bellaire, Texas

Renee McGinnis
Chesterton, Indiana

Marc Sapp
Delaware, Ohio

Jessica Sharpe
Jacksonville, Florida

Angie Zielinski
Tucson, Arizona

Angie Zielinski

Jessica Sharpe

central gallery

ONE 16
The Winner of the 16th Annual Manifest Prize

The winning work will be revealed at the Preview Reception on December 11th.

ABOUT THE MANIFEST PRIZE

A decade ago our board of directors doubled the Manifest Prize to $5,000. This year the prize was doubled again, to $10,000. These decisions underscore our non-profit organization's desire to reward, showcase, celebrate, and document exceptional artwork being made today by working artists, and to do this in a tasteful non-commercial public context. Manifest's mission is centered on championing the importance of quality in visual art, supporting and encouraging artists at all levels from all backgrounds. This annual award is one aspect of the realization of that mission.

We respect the creative principle of reduction—the blind jury process—as it is employed to achieve an essential conclusive statement for each exhibit we produce. This is what has led to the high caliber of each Manifest exhibit, and to the gallery's notable following. We believe competition inspires excellence. Therefore we determined over a decade ago to launch the Manifest Prize in order to push the process to the ultimate limit—from among many to select just ONE work.

Manifest's jury process for the 16th Annual Manifest Prize included multiple levels of jury review of 1016 works of all shapes, sizes, and media made by 238 artists from around the world. The jury consisted of a total of 15 different volunteer jurors from across the U.S. providing over 6,500 scores through multipe rounds. Each level of the process resulted in fewer works passing on to the next, until a winner was reached. The size and physical nature of the works considered was not a factor in the jury scoring and selection.

It should be noted that the winner and finalists, 5 works, represent roughly the top scoring .5% of the jury pool. The winner represents the top one-tenth of 1% of the jury pool.

The winning work will be presented in Manifest's Central Gallery from December 12, 2025 through January 9, 2026. It will be accompanied by excerpts from juror statements and the artist's statement.

north gallery

16th Annual TAPPED
Artists and their Professors

The relationship between artists and their current or former instructors can be a powerful one. Even when this bond is left unstated, we carry our professors' voices forward in time as we mature as artists and people. We eventually realize that the instruction given by our teachers during our relatively brief careers as students continues to expand within us. We experience the learning they inspired (or insisted upon) as a chain-reaction process that develops across our lifetime. All of us who have been students carry forward our teachers' legacy in one form or another. And those who are, or have been teachers, bear witness to the potency of studenthood.

Out of respect for this artist-teacher bond, and in honor of teachers working so hard to help artists tap into a higher mind relative to art and life, Manifest is proud to  present TAPPED, an annual exhibit that presents paired works of art by current or former artist/teacher pairs.

For this exhibit 59 artists submitted 149 works from 15 states, Washington D.C., and Canada. Twelve works by the following 12 artists from 6 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.

The artists are listed in pairings to illustrate their teacher/student relationship (past or present). Works on view will include paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, and digital paintings. The exhibition layout is planned so that each pair of artists' works will be shown side-by-side or in close proximity. Visitors will be able to enjoy the variety of types of works while also considering the nature of influence between professor and student.

It is worth noting that some of the artists in the former student category may now themselves be working as a professor.

Ticketed Preview - Annual Fund Benefit:
Thursday, Jan. 22, 7-9pm
—————–
Public Opening: Friday, Jan. 23, 6-9pm

Ticketed Preview - Annual Fund Benefit:
Thursday, April 16, 7-9pm
—————–
Public Opening: Friday, April 17, 6-9pm

Ticketed Preview - Annual Fund Benefit:
Thursday, May 28, 7-9pm
—————–
Public Opening: Friday, May 29, 6-9pm

Ticketed Preview - Annual Fund Benefit:
Thursday, July 9, 7-9pm
—————–
Public Opening: Friday, July 10, 6-9pm

Ticketed Preview - Annual Fund Benefit:
Thursday, Aug. 13, 7-9pm
—————–
Public Opening: Friday, Aug. 14, 6-9pm

Season 22 Launch
Celebrating Manifest's 529th Exhibition!
September 26 - October 27, 2025

main gallery + central gallery + north gallery

PAINTED 2025
Manifest Gallery's 7th Biennial Survey of Contemporary Painting

At some point many generations ago society reached a level where ordinary people could spend a lifetime perfecting their ability to mix and apply paint in extraordinary ways. Manifest established this exhibit as a permanent biennial project in 2013 to inaugurate our expanded gallery. PAINTED 2025 is the seventh biennial presentation of this survey of contemporary painting.

PAINTED joins Drawn as a recurring gallery exhibition designed to complement our recurring INDA and INPA (drawing and painting) publications. Every two years it launches our exhibition season by presenting a competitive group exhibition focused exclusively on painting.

For this exhibit 156 artists submitted 545 works from 33 states, Puerto Rico, Washington D.C., and 4 countries, including Germany, India, Italy, and the United States. Thirty works by the following 22 artists from 20 states were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.

We are pleased to present works by:

Caitlin Berndt
Brooklyn, New York

Lisa Bryson
Jamul, California

Brooks Cashbaugh
Iowa City, Iowa

Katelyn Chapman
Hanahan, South Carolina

Lawrence Cromwell
Baltimore, Maryland

Grace Flott
Seattle, Washington

Adrian Hatfield
Ferndale, Michigan

Susan Hoffer
Lake Placid, New York

Rob Kolomyski
Woodbury, Minnesota

David Linneweh
West Chicago, Illinois

Perin Mahler
Rolling Hills, California

Andrew Martin
Lubbock, Texas

Marcus Michels
Hattiesburg, Mississippi

Natalija Mijatovic
Newark, Delaware

Sara Pedigo
Saint Augustine, Florida

Marc Ross
Columbus, Ohio

Joshua Schaefer
Voorhees, New Jersey

Shelby Shadwell
Laramie, Wyoming

Benjamin Shamback
Mobile, Alabama

Carlton Scott Sturgill
New Orleans, Louisiana

Nathan Sullivan
Swanzey, New Hampshire

Dganit Zauberman
Guilford, Connecticut

Adrian Hatfield

Shelby Shadwell

Grace Flott

Joshua Schaefer

drawing room + parallel space

AQUACHROME
Biennial Exhibit of Contemporary Watercolor*

Quite possibly the oldest form of painting, watercolor persists today, defying narrow categorization and broad stereotype. Practiced for centuries in concept development preliminary to 'finished' paintings made in oil or other scale-worthy durable media, watercolor also found favor with botanists, illustrators, and portraitists, and was applied to varied and countless surfaces.

The nature of the media itself represents a delicate and dictatorial transparency, fluidity, and a potential for expressive spontaneity. This not only makes it an ideal vehicle for contemporary art, but also one of training, intensity, philosophy, and play for any who practice it. Where an artist can easily dominate other painting media, forcing a will through viscous layers into a work of art like taming a wild horse, with watercolor there is dialog, compromise, and undeniable forthrightness. In this way the artist practicing watercolor works with a tiger in the room.

*Along with watercolor, works in gouache, ink wash, and other similar media were accepted for consideration as a subset of the broader Manifest painting biennial.

For this exhibit 48 artists submitted 164 works from 20 states, Puerto Rico, and 3 countries, including Canada, Cyprus, and the United States. Nineteen works by the following 13 artists from 12 states and Canada were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.

Presenting works by:

Elisa Albrecht
Cleveland Heights, Ohio

Milena Guberinic
Ridgeway, Canada

Mikey Hernandez
Irving, Texas

Kristen Letts Kovak
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Maria Laureno
Chicago, Illinois

Tom Leytham
Montpelier, Vermont

Ambrin Ling
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Scott McDonald
Lincoln, Nebraska

Matthew McHugh
Greeley, Colorado

Irene Pantelis
Bethesda, Maryland

Adrian Rhodes
Hartsville, South Carolina

Katherine Sullivan
Holland, Michigan

Emily Wingate
Indianapolis, Indiana

Mikey Hernandez

Ambrin Ling

Kristen Letts Kovak

Manifest is supported by sustainability funding from the Ohio Arts Council, and through the generous direct contributions of hundreds of individual supporters and private foundations who care deeply about Manifest's mission for the visual arts.

gallery map
2727 woodburn avenue
cincinnati, ohio 45206

drawing center map (m1)
3464 Central Parkway
cincinnati, ohio 45223