Currently on display

Festival Hall

With a title like 30 Under 30, this exhibition naturally invites a familiar set of assumptions: a celebration of youth as novelty, a showcase of emerging talent, or a glimpse into the "artists of tomorrow." But peer a little deeper and you will find these artists acting as acute observers, critics, and interpreters of an urgent present. Beginning with intimate vantage points—a grandmother’s photographs, a laboratory tool, a notebook entry, a local landscape, or a childhood memory, they construct expansive inquiries into history, science, technology, and culture.

Across varied media, identity is rarely presented as static or solved. Whether exploring existential experiences, cultural duality, or inherited social expectations, these works treat identity as a dynamic process—something to be continually questioned, performed, defended, and reclaimed. At the same time, in a world that feels increasingly unstable, many of these artists take on the role of archivists documenting the impermanent. From pulped photographs and geological samples to neuroscience and emotional interiority, their processes ask the particular question: What survives? In doing so, they illuminate the hidden structures—psychological, scientific, and personal—that subtly shape our daily lives.

Directly confronting technological acceleration, artificial intelligence, political tension, and ecological shift, the exhibition resists easy answers or neat resolutions. Instead, these artists inhabit a state of continuous becoming, finding truth within ambiguity, vulnerability, and unresolved questions. A resilient thread of human connection runs throughout the gallery despite the heavy cultural forces under examination. Beyond individual introspection, a powerful visual motif of human interaction emerges: paired forms, shared domestic spaces, and objects built for gathering, conversation, and care. Even when human figures are absent, these physical forms hold open the lingering, hopeful potential for community, dialogue, and mutual support.

Ultimately, 30 Under 30 offers a collective portrait of a cohort holding contradictions, building belonging, and maintaining their humanity within a rapidly changing world. By transforming intimate, personal narratives into vital cultural dialogues, these artists remind us that the work of understanding our shared moment, here and now, begins in the quiet details of human experience. Preview the artworks and see the artists’ statements here.

Misty Gamble
Meadows Gallery

Now on display is a body of work from renowned ceramicist Misty Gamble, who shares the following artist statement:

"My current studio practice sits at the intersection of feminism and environmentalism and looks to the relationship between human animals and non-human animals. I am looking at the overlap of feminist and vegan critical theory that discusses consumptive culture and objectification in language and “the absent referent” in literature. My work is inspired by research from The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol J. Adams, which has become the classic articulation of the hidden connections between meat eating and patriarchy, and between vegetarianism and feminism.

In the solo exhibition, Of Flesh and The Feminine, a series of eight ageless ceramic life-size femmes, depicted through torsos, and inspired by the Rococo hold up heads with enormous baroque fantastical coiffures and operate as pedestals for the gigantic meat bouquet of animal fragments and accoutrement. Atop the head sits metal woven 'cages' or upside down French revolutionary era pocket skirts holding cornucopias of synthetic hair, tassels, horns, faux flora and ceramic cast drumsticks, wings and feet.

For artists, there is nothing more currently pressing, than engaging in discourse about the earth and all its inhabitants. This exhibition explores environmental issues through eco-social engagement that is anchored in community-led development and uses art to draw the community into talking about and acting on social, political, or environmental issues. This exhibition creates an opportunity to support dialogue to bring about social change that goes beyond the exhibition space."

Festival Hall

In the earliest days of GDAC, as far back as 1969, original members of our organization established the beginnings of a small permanent collection of artworks. Some of the early pieces were acquired as purchase awards from the Fine Arts Festival of Denton, while later works were gifts or bequests from artists and local patrons of the arts.

While GDAC no longer accepts or pursues additions to our permanent collection, we want to ensure the community still has the opportunity to enjoy the pieces that we have. Some of the works are on display around the building in perpetuity and others are hung in Festival Hall between exhibitions.

Our staff is in the process of rebuilding the catalogue of our permanent collection artworks and researching further into the artists and their works to preserve their stories. You can see the in-progress catalogue here.