Announcing our 2025 Open Call Finalists

Our jury of William Downs, Éngel Ellis, Makeda Lewis, and Steven L. Anderson sifted thorough almost 50 submissions, and boiled them down to eight amazing proposals. We’re excited to announce these finalists and their scheduled exhibitions over the next two years.

Hanna Newman and Blaise Dell

May 7 – 30, 2026

Hanna Newman is an interdisciplinary artist based in Georgia. Her work has been showcased in a diverse range of venues, including the Atlanta Contemporary in Atlanta, Art Conscious in New Orleans, Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, the Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design Galleries at Georgia State University in Atlanta, the SALA Festival in Adelaide, Australia, and the Kyoto Shibori Museum in Kyoto, Japan. With an interdisciplinary approach that joins material investigations and conceptual exploration, Newman’s work plays with themes of memory, space, and identity. She earned an MFA from Georgia State University in 2021 and is currently an Assistant Professor of Art Appreciation at Chattahoochee Technical College in Georgia. 

Blaise Dell is an artist committed to learning and teaching sculpture, specifically metal and wood work. Sharing these crafts is their contribution to a world built on collaboration and caretaking, rather than consumption and destruction. Born and raised in New York City, they now live in Atlanta.

Noah Reyes

Sept. 11 – Oct. 4, 2026

Noah Reyes lives and works in Atlanta, GA. Reyes is an artist taking steps in many different directions, resulting in an awkward dance between curating, writing, and artmaking. Their work plays with words and symbols to craft a slippage of meaning about where they come from and where they are. Touching upon a history we are a part of, but cannot fully define, Noah aims to bridge connections between people and cultures to shape a more empathetic and nurturing future.

They work for Art Papers, serve as a board member for Lostintheletters, and co-founded Eso Tilin Projects. Sometimes they write for ArtsATL, ART PAPERS, Burnaway, and IMPACT Magazine.

Ashley Whitt & Ashley Kauschinger

Oct. 15 – Nov. 7, 2026

Ashley Whitt is an educator and visual artist based in Dallas, Texas. Her work explores the psychological states, body horror, and feminism in the digital age. She uses a variety of photographic techniques including solvent transfers, digital manipulation, video/GIFs, sculptural bookmaking, and traditional darkroom processes. Whitt graduated from Texas Woman's University with an M.F.A. in Studio Art in 2012, and a B.F.A in Studio Art from UT Arlington in 2009. Whitt’s creative research has been featured in several publications including The Hand Magazine, Lenscratch, Lensculture, Light Leaked and interviews in Fragmentary and Deep Red Press. Her work has been widely exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at galleries including Kirk Hopper Fine Art, Box 13 Art Space, Photosynthesis Gallery, and PhotoPlace Gallery. Her work has been shown locally, nationally and internationally including Texas, New York, California, Vermont, Connecticut, China, India, and Russia. Whitt is the Director of Visual Resources in the Department of Art History at Southern Methodist University. She is also the president of 500X Gallery, the oldest artist-run gallery in Texas. Ashley also co-runs Art Y’all, which provides curated art experiences (workshops, studio visits, gallery and museum tours) that bring the community closer to the creative pulse of North Texas.

Ashley Kauschinger is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Atlanta, GA. Her work explores identity, time, and material. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at Georgia Gwinnett College. She received her BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design and her MFA from Texas Woman's University. Her work has been exhibited and published internationally, and is in the collections of Vanderbilt University and Sir Elton John. In addition to being an artist and educator, Ashley is also an independent curator and community member. She founded the online photography magazine Light Leaked, and has collaborated on projects with Swan Coach House Gallery, the Atlanta Center for Photography, MINT, Lenscratch, The Light Factory Photo Arts Center, and more. Day & Night followers may remember her collaboration with Stephanie Dowda DeMer in 2023.

Camisha Butler

Jan. 14 – Feb. 6, 2027

Camisha Butler is a  textile artist and educator  whose work interlaces history, storytelling, and preservation of traditional practices. Her practice explores the ways craft carries memory, identity, and cultural resilience within textile based mediums such as weaving, embroidery and applique based needlework. Through large-scale textile compositions and sculptural installations, Butler reflects on heritage and community narratives, while also confronting issues of sustainability.

Her work has been exhibited nationally in museums, galleries, and public spaces, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and the Atlanta Beltline. Most recently, as an artist-in-residence at the Hapeville Depot Museum, she collaborated with historians to uncover stories of Plunkett Town, translating archival research into tactile, visual forms. Deeply influenced by William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement, Butler envisions her practice as both artistic and civic labor, rooted in the belief that craft is essential to cultural vitality.

John Folsom

Feb. 25 – March 20, 2027

John Folsom is a multimedia artist whose practice engages with the intersections of history, identity, and place through photographic inquiry. Born and raised in Paducah, Kentucky, he earned his BFA in Cinema and Photography from Southern Illinois University. Folsom’s work investigates the material and conceptual possibilities of the photographic image, employing digital media, screen printing, and painting. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Gibbes Museum of Art, and Telfair Museums, among other public and private collections.

Amber Toplisek

April 1 – 24, 2027

Amber Toplisek (b.1995) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Atlanta, GA. Her work explores the network of images that reside within, functioning as an imperceptible alchemy that influence and guide our lives. Amber’s work engages with different methods of obfuscation and utilizes both kinetic and still interventions with photographs, metal, and glass in order to investigate and extend an encounter with a photographic image.

Her work has been recently exhibited at This Weekend Room, Seoul, SK; Koslov Larsen, Houston, TX; HotSheet, London, UK; and mimo, Brooklyn, NY. She earned an MFA from the University of South Florida in 2024. Toplisek is currently a Visiting Lecturer at Georgia State University. 

Leah Solomon

May 13 – June 5, 2027

Leah Solomon is a multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker whose work spans expanded cinema and sculpture, rooted in queer Black diasporic perspectives. Her practice investigates autobiographical and abstracted geographies, exploring transnational migrant experiences, political exile, and the complex negotiations of belonging across the Global South.

Solomon develops a polyphonic vocabulary across film, performance, and sculpture, blending poetic, lyrical, and tactile approaches. Her sculptural work reflects on themes of erosion, the mutability of hand-formed ecosystems, and the histories embedded in craft traditions.

She is currently a resident studio artist at Atlanta Contemporary. Her work has been exhibited at REDCAT Theater, Ars Electronica Festival, BlackStar Film Festival, Berlin International Arts Film Festival, NOW Gallery, Barnard Movement Lab, MoCADA Museum, and the Atlanta Art Fair.

Kimani Johnson

Oct. 22 – Nov. 13, 2027

Kimani Johnson makes quilts that hold memory, pleasure, and protest in the same breath. Their work reaches for freedom through fabric, letting color and texture speak where words fall short. Each piece sits in the tension between comfort and confrontation, between what feels good and what needs to be said. Shaped by Southern Black and queer traditions of making, Kimani treats softness as a site of power. Their quilts pull from pleasure activism and everyday life to imagine care, sensuality, and beauty as ways to survive and push back. The work asks for intimacy, not perfection, and reminds us that tenderness can be its own kind of rebellion.