
Past Art Exhibitions
NCRC has a great history of partnerships with local artists. Below is the archive of previous exhibitions the NCRC has hosted.

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Artist ReceptionNovember 17, 6PM-8PM
Artist TalkJanuary 14, 12PM
Samah Kthar is an artist fueled by harnessing the present moment of experience, into something tangible to share. She believes the way to explain an experience, and connect with others is through art. Although having no formal experience in art education, Kthar has obtained three degrees: B.S. in Biological Sciences, B.S in Health Sciences, and Masters in Occupational Therapy. Blending the role as an Artist and an Occupational Therapist in turn, allows her to help others utilize art to...

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Artist ReceptionNovember 17, 6PM-8PM
Artist TalkJanuary 14, 12PM
John Rizzo was born and raised in Chicago. In 1997, John moved to Detroit to attend school, received an MFA from Wayne State University, fell in love with the city and has called it home ever since. John is currently employed as the Wood Shop Manager at the College for Creative Studies; in addition, he teaches two courses in the Foundations Program. Detroit students enrolled in John's courses learn 3-Dimensional Concepts as well as 3-Dimensional Techniques, both of which aim at training early...

Stephanie Sarris earned M.F.A. Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills--Drawing and Painting and B.F.A. & B.A.E. University of Michigan. Her artist training includes studies at Eastern Michigan University, Florence, Italy, University of Michigan, Dearborn and Wayne State University, Detroit.
Sarris has exhibited her work extensively throughout the Detroit Metropolitan area, and is included in the permanent collections of Neiman Marcus, Somerset Collection/Troy, Michigan; Tysons II/ McClean, Virginia; Dallas, Texas;Fort Worth, Texas; Las Vegas,...

Sandra Osip was born in Detroit, Michigan and earned Bachelor of Science from Wayne State University, and Master of Fine Arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art. She has received two Michigan Council of Arts awards and a public art commission titled “Progression” for the Detroit People Mover “Art in the Stations”project, in the Fort/Cass Station.
Osip’s artwork has been included in exhibitions at the Hill Gallery in Birmingham, Michigan, Wasserman Project, Detroit, Michigan and Carl Hammer Gallery, Chicago, Illinois; and it can be found in many permanent art collections including the...

Artist Reception: NCRC, Building 18 on Friday, February 7, 5PM - 7PM
Cathy VanVoorhis was one of two artists in residence hosted by University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS) during the summer 2019. The UMBS provides students and faculty the opportunity to study environmental science in the field, alongside some of the world’s most respected experts. Including cultural experts, through a residency program, in the mix provided a perfect bridge between the arts and sciences.
The work created during this residency will be featured in her exhibition titled “Forest and...

Artist Reception: NCRC, Building 18 on Friday, February 7, 5PM - 7PM
"Photography is a universal language and it is my hope that my images will move viewers to respond not only with empathy, but also with action. It is my intention to photograph people with compassion and dignity in the hope of communicating our interrelatedness." — Mark Tuschman
Mark Tuschman has worked as an international freelance photographer for more than 34 years. He dedicates himself to raising awareness on international issues regarding women and children, and is committed to issues of...
Al Hebert has been a prominent figure in the Detroit art scene since he received his MFA at Wayne State University in 1967. In the Exhibition “Advice to Polonius” Hebert references Shakespeare’s Hamlet , Polonius, a man of experience, who gives some life advice to his son Laertes. Polonius states “neither a borrower nor a lender be”, and advise him to borrow objects extensively from many sources, and then lend them to sculptural assemblage.
This is exactly what Hebert does in the creation of the works in this exhibit, incorporating Objet trouvé ...
Born and raised in northern Michigan, Alli grew up surrounded by the beauty of nature. From a young age, she picked up watercolor painting, emulating her mother while they would travel around Michigan and back to where her dad grew up in British Columbia, Canada. Self-taught from a young age, she would take her watercolors outside and attempt to paint what she saw -- weather it was mountains, lakes, rivers, or the woods.
Years later, Alli attended the University of Michigan and completed a degree in architecture. Although she appreciates the built environment, she is continually...

Gilda Snowden (1954 – 2014) was a Detroit artist who received a bachelor of fine arts, master of art and master of fine arts in painting from Wayne State University. She was Interim Chair and Professor of Fine Arts at the College for Creative Studies, Detroit and also Gallery Director of the Detroit Repertory Theatre. Snowden’s works have been exhibited throughout the United States, as well as in Mexico, Canada and West Africa. Her works are featured in a number of publications, as well as private and corporate collections, including Post/Newsweek, the Neiman-Marcus Corporation, Ameritech...

Lester Johnson, renowned Detroit artist, earned his bachelor of fine arts and master of fine arts degrees from the University of Michigan. He has exhibited his work in the Detroit Institute of Arts, Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and galleries and museums around the world. A Garland of Praise Songs for Rosa Parks finds its permanent home at the Wayne State University Law School’s Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights in Detroit. In 2011, Johnson was invited to sign the famed historic Scarab Club beam, an honor extended to artists who have made significant and...

Karen Anne Klein uses images of natures to tell stories. The birds, flowers and insects she chooses for her compositions have symbolic meanings and mythological associations. There is always more there than meets the eye. Drawing directly from life, from specimens found in natural history museums, Klein creates beautifully realistic works that incorporate a touch of whimsy and wonder.
This exhibition will feature Cabinets of Curiosities/Wunder-Kammer: During the Renaissance, private collections were assembled in rooms with the idea that a person could know...

We are a wondrous, accomplished, creative species of primate… that also happens to be shortsighted, dangerously self-absorbed, and destructive on a global scale. The only planet we know to harbor life is changing rapidly, largely by our industrious actions. Never before has the need to explore, embrace, and conserve life’s diversity been as important as it is now.
This show represents hints of what we cannot see, or often choose not to see, and is a plea to celebrate the tiny majority that drives our ecosystems and has influenced human culture since our cultures’ incipient stages....

Michigan Medicine advisors, peer mentors, and staff have created artwork and stories reflecting the patient experience.
Art Reception: 5-6:30 p.m.
Storytelling Event: 6:30-8 p.m.

Dennis Jones, a visual artist, educator, and licensed practicing architect, has exhibited his work locally, nationally and internationally over the last twenty-six years. Selected exhibition venues include The OK Harris Gallery, New York; The Robert Kidd Gallery, Birmingham, MI; Oakland University Art Gallery, Rochester Hills, MI; Grand Rapids, ArtPrize; Elaine L. Jacob Gallery, Detroit, MI; The College for Creative Studies Center Galleries, Detroit, MI; Concordia College Gallery, Ann Arbor Art Center and The Gallery Project, Ann Arbor, MI. Jones recently curated an exhibition titled, SIX...

Reinventing Matisse is an exhibition of original artworks created by men and women living well with memory loss who participate in the Michigan Medicine,
UM Geriatrics Silver Club Programs. The mission of the Silver Club Programs is to build a community where people with memory loss make friends, share joys and fears, be creative and have fun through meaningful adult-focused engaging activities.
The exhibition consists of original art pieces in the art mediums of acrylic painting, collage and mixed media.
Please contact the...

K.A. Letts is a graduate of Barnard College (B.A.) and Yale Drama School (M.F.A.) and is an Inter/National Alumna Artist at A.I.R. Gallery ( www.airgallery.org ) in Brooklyn, N.Y. In 2015, Letts has shown work at Hatch Art in Hamtramck, at 555 Galleries in Detroit, Motor Row Gallery in Chicago and at Non-Fiction Gallery in Savannah GA. Work by K.A. Letts was on exhibit in 2014-2015 at the Toledo Art Museum in the 95th Annual Area Artists Exhibit where she was awarded the Toledo Federation of Art Society's Purchase Award....

Allie McGhee is Detroit’s famed “Old Master” of abstract expressionism. After attending Cass Technical High School, Detroit, McGhee studied at Ferris State University and Eastern Michigan University, where he graduated in 1965. A Detroiter for over five decades, he is committed to art in public places, such as his commissions for Michigan Avenue Station on the Detroit People Mover and Detroit Receiving Hospital. His paintings are included in the collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Studio Museum in Harlem, NYC; and has been featured at the G.R. N'namdi Gallery (Detroit, MI...

Donita Simpson is a Detroit based photographer who creates images of Detroit area artists, many who have exhibited at NCRC, in their personal creative environments. She earned her BFA, MFA and MEd from Wayne State University.
Simpson's portraits have hung in the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, traveled the nation and won several Statewide competitions. Her portrait of Detroit's beloved Gilda Snowden was chosen as a finalist in The Outwin 2016 American Portraiture Today Competition, selected from over 2500 entries. She has been photographing Detroit artists since...

Joyce Brienza is a Detroit artist who has shown work nationally and internationally. The Paintings and Drawings in this exhibition express her decades long interest in the “places between” the conscious and unconscious, representation and abstraction, male and female, high art and low. The pictures are combinations of disparate elements evoking the surprise that accompanies a dream state and that create a poetical wave that will float the viewer if only they submit. Works consist of multiple - fragmented parts that are connected but ultimately separate. As with the Japanese aesthetic of...

Dalia Reyes is an interdisciplinary artist from Southwest Detroit, who earned her undergraduate degree from College for Creative Studies. She has exhibited her work through the Detroit Metropolitan area. Her current work focuses on cosmic fantasy and visual meditation.

Adnan Charara is a Lebanese-American artist who has lived and worked in the U.S. since 1982. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe and the Middle East. With an unquenchable thirst to create since he was a child, Charara drew, painted, sculpted and assembled his way from Seattle to Boston to Detroit, where he currently makes his artistic home. Adnan works in multiple mediums with several ideas at a time, treating his studio practice like a detail-oriented factory. His hard-working dedication is masked by his whimsical and humorous treatment of serious subjects....

These original pieces of artwork were created by men and women living well with memory loss who participate in the Michigan Medicine,
UM Geriatrics Silver Club programs. The mission of the Silver Club programs is to build a community where people with memory loss make friends, share joys and fears, be creative and have fun through meaningful adult-focused engaging activities. The exhibition consists of over 30 original art pieces that are watercolor, acrylic painting, collage and mixed media.
For more information on Silver Club Programs contact: 734-998-9352, or
...

Susan Aaron-Taylor has exhibited her work for over three decades. The sculptures in this exhibition blend her love of Jungian psychology, alchemy, dreams, rituals, mythology, and shamanism with the detritus of matter. Unlike geological strata, these layers are accessible for work two to three decades removed from their original expression.
She states “My intense exploration of mediums and techniques over the year’s gives me the freedom to incorporate a wide range of materials. Found wood, fleece, minerals, cactus, porcupine quills, beads, shells, bones, and kozo fiber have all been...

Carole Harris is a fiber artist, working primarily in the art of quilt medium. Her work has extended the boundaries of traditional quilting. Her process is improvisational. She lets the fabric and color lead her on a rhythmic journey, using combinations of commercially printed cottons, silks, linen, hand dyed, hand painted, vintage fabrics and paper thrown in. These materials are cut up, overlaid, hand stitched, burned, painted, repositioned, until she knows that she has arrived at her destination of a densely layered composition. Her work is included in many private and institutional...

Jeremy Thacker-Mann is an emerging artist and graduate of College for Creative Studies. His work has been featured at the Detroit Artist Market, 555 Gallery, 101 and up, Cass Café, Motor City Brewery, Detroit Medical Center, Bohemian National Home, Artist Among Us, Our Town and Gualan Biennial, Bao’an District in Shenzhen, China.
Jeremy’s paintings are two-dimensional works of art, that are felt. Both figuratively and literally. He uses dried paint scraps, excavated from old palettes, to "build" his paintings into non-objective displays of contrasting colors, textures and finishes...