Gallery Aferro is a platform for the exchange of ideas in service of advancing human dignity and beauty, with a focus on visual arts as the vehicle, proudly located in Newark, NJ.
Gallery Aferro serves as a conduit to connect art collectors and researchers to artists whose works span more than 80 years of history and include paintings, drawings, embroidery, watercolors, photographs, and mixed-media installations. These collections are a testament to Aferro’s growth as an institution supporting emerging and established artists –many of them women, LGBTQ+, and generational elders — throughout their careers, including members of the foundational Aferro Studios Residency Program.
Please contact Registrar Juno Zago for more information on how to purchase works or Gallery Manager Candace Nicholson for other ways you can support Aferro’s mission. We are proud to share the work of the following artists who have entrusted Aferro with their art by stewardship and/or curatorial oversight:
From her early days as a student at the Art Institute of Chicago to opening the first art gallery in Newark’s Weequahic neighborhood to igniting a modern mural movement that would help mark her adopted city as one of the Top 20 Most Arts-Vibrant Communities in the U.S., Gladys Barker Grauer was a prolific trailblazer in the world of painting, sculpture, collage, weaving, and mixed media art. Her legacy — spanning 70 years in the art scene — earned her the moniker of “Mother of Newark Arts.” The subject of her own 2019 documentary film titled Being Gladys, her impact continues to inspire artists near and far to this day. Gallery Aferro is proud to be the exclusive curatorial liaison for Barker Grauer’s work.
As a Master Papermaker whose technical prowess and intuitive work has taken her to four continents, gracing the social circles of some of the most respected names in the art world, Anne Q. McKeown is not even close to the end of her explorations. Her work has become a mainstay of art collectors moved by the combination of rational and conceptual interpretations of intuitive imagery. McKeown’s collection includes a variety of painting, printmaking, papermaking and wire drawings at Gallery Aferro.
Whether its embroidery, photography or watercolors, Heather L. Johnson brings the spirit of fearlessness to everything she touches. With subjects ranging from the ethereal abstract to unadulterated realism, Johnson’s work has taken her far and wide, but, more importantly, into the lives of countless individuals whose identities, cultures and experiences are reflected in her creations and her philosophy that we are all bound together by our basic humanity. Gallery Aferro offers a collection of Johnson’s works onsite, as her ongoing art project keeps her on the road.
Although Kea Tawana was known primarily for one large-scale work of art that many viewed as her magnum opus — the Ark of Newark — she was also an artist who contributed to the vibrancy of Newark’s community with her advocacy, her assistance, and her passion. Alongside a permanent sound installation in the form of a classic, silver Bell payphone that shares nine tales from Newark residents speaking to Tawana’s life, art and legacy, Gallery Aferro is proud to offer access to her writings, project drawings, and original artworks, including those completed in the decades after the events of the Ark.
Katherine McGlynn may have retired from photography in 2010, but the indelible mark of her work as a street photographer continues to influence and shape the appreciation of contemporary photography as an unapologetic witness to culture, fellowship and perseverance. Moving to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 1982 changed her approach to her craft and provided an opportunity to use her lens as a window into the everyday lives of a community many preferred to ignore.
LG Carpenter’s artistic career reflects an inquisitive, visual output that spans multiple genres, such as portraiture, still life, landscapes and urban street scenes. Inspired by ’90s-era wandering around New York’s Lower East Side (and other neighborhoods), his sensibility encompasses an exploration of photographic-inspired art processes that marry the traditional with the experimental, constructing a juxtaposition of perspective on studies of the male figure, human sexuality and the ideas of beauty. Carpenter’s collection at Gallery Aferro includes a variety of landscapes, drawings, and documentary-style street portrait photography.
Gladys Barker Grauer, Saturday Morning, wax resist, 26.5×37, 1981