"Protean Core" Exhibition

A collaborative exhibition between Neptune in June and Pelham Art Center

Opening Reception: March 19 (6-8 pm)
On View: March 19 - April 26, 2026
Open: Monday - Friday (9am - 5pm), Saturday-Sunday (10am - 4pm)

On View at Pelham Art Center
155 5th Avenue, Pelham, NY 10803

https://www.pelhamartcenter.org/gallery/upcoming-exhibition/
https://www.neptuneinjune.com/events/protean-core

[PROH - TEE - UHN: readily taking on various shapes or forms; variable]

In a social climate steadily tightening toward uniformity, without an inherent promise of unity, Protean Core offers alternate visions. The exhibition proposes a world where fluidity is trusted as an essential and historied tool for resilience and growth. Five artists roam the expanses between self and community, custom and disruption, or stability and risk. By embracing amalgamation and mutability, these artists reframe impermanence as a generative force—one that allows for new configurations of belonging and collaboration. The exhibition includes found-object and mixed-media sculpture, installation, painting, illustration, collage, glass and mosaic work.

Brian Smith's sculptures use queer ecologies to envision how bodily forms might evolve to meet the demands of an uncertain environmental future. Technology and consumerism have brought humans to a place so distant from the natural world that they hardly see themselves as natural beings; meanwhile, recent legislation in America and elsewhere seeks to reject queerness as a natural phenomenon. Smith’s tiled and cast sculptures unfurl myriadic potential in adaptable forms.

Dante Migone-Ojeda’s mixed-media sculptures explore the shifting duality of a mestizaje identity shaped both by indigenous and colonial lineages. By recontextualizing found objects and religious scenes through tender depictions of gesture and touch, Migone-Ojeda’s work pays homage to the cognitive dissonance of his experience as a second-generation immigrant balancing between worlds.

Naomi Chambers’ site-specific installations invite healing through play, weaving affectionately elastic community bonds. She exalts found objects to bring the everyday stories and experiences of Black culture and motherhood into environments of care. Through painting, casting, and bedazzling, Chambers’ spaces tell perennial stories of nourishment and resilience.

Lydia Kinney's labyrinthian paintings and collages wrestle with a sense of mourning for losses in the future tense. Through a process of continuous subtraction and addition, her practice builds acceptance of loss, change, doubt, and vulnerability. The work is environmental and ornamental, with adorned views into fields of color.

Armando Veve's intimately-scaled, sometimes complex illustrations depict uncanny juxtapositions, whimsical storytelling, and commentary on contemporary and historical subjects. The work carries a loosening sense of reason, allowing us a lateral view of our own social frameworks.

Neptune in June (formerly Ice Cream Social art space) is a nomadic curatorial & community project originally based in Port Chester, NY. It offers exhibitions and interdisciplinary events across the U.S., and provides educational programs to schools throughout Westchester. It is also a co-founder and organizer of the Port Chester Arts Festival. Neptune in June connects artists across geographic and professional silos who are making ambitious, personally meaningful work that typically falls outside commercial art market interests.
 

Pelham Art Center is a non-profit educational and cultural institution committed to providing access to study, experience and appreciate the arts. The Pelham Art Center strives to be a vibrant, engaging arts space that provides unique opportunities to learn and enhance artistic skills and practices. With  community at our core, we welcome participants of diverse backgrounds to foster connections and encourage the open exchange of ideas.