The artists featured in this juried exhibition are both artists and educators, as well as current members of FATE (Foundations in Art: Theory and Education). FATE is an educational association dedicated to promoting excellence in the development and teaching of college- level foundation courses in both studio and art history. This exhibit presents a curated selection of 18 FATE member artists’ individual studio practices, chosen by guest juror Sheldon Scott, a DC-based artist and the keynote presenter for the FATE 2025 Conference.

The works selected for the exhibition represent a diverse set of artistic practices and perspectives. While each approach is distinct, they are unified by an embrace of multidisciplinary methods and timely subject matter, including interrogations of current political and cultural conditions. All of the featured artists foreground materiality, process, and the tactility of handmade objects or repurposed materials. Many offer moments of respite, collective care, or yearning for alternatives within a world of uncertainty. Others deploy the conceptual possibilities of abstraction and poetic ambiguity to navigate the anxieties of climate change, identity formation, and mortality.

Nicole Condon-Shih, Yvette Cummings, Adam Farcus, Jonathan Frey, Miles Halpern, Alex Hanson, Ron Hollingshead, Chris Ireland, Samara Johnson, Mallory Kimmel, Njeri Kinuthia, Forrest Lawson, Riva Nayaju, MJ Neuberger, Adrew Thompson, Anthony Warnick, Su Yang, and Summer Zickefoose

Artist Sheldon Scott mines his experiences growing up in the Gullah/Geechee South and professional background in storytelling to examine the Black male form with particular emphasis on biases of usability and expendability in relation to constructs of race, economics, and sexuality

Scott’s works have been presented at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; American University Art Museum, Washington, DC; and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA, Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC, Perez Art Museum Miami, and the Aspen Institute.

The artist’s work is featured in museum collections including: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC; Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC; Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA.

“Next/Now regards the importance of What we teach and How we teach. The process of giving and receiving systematic instruction is the framework for liberation. The understanding of our Past, the contemplation of our Present, and the aspiration of our Future both informs and demands our humanity.

This exhibition-as-stream-of consciousness arrays works that reflects the contemplation of artists and educators. Varied media used to express these ideas are diverse in both materials and utility, and by virtue expands accessibility. Video, Sculpture, Installation, Photography and Painting all present new pathways that, as expressed by FATE, “challenge traditional/status quo thinking of Foundations”, laying the groundwork for practices that will project the Next and protect the Now.”