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Galleries at Kean: Spring 2026
Transcending Boundaries - The Artist at Work
Transcending Boundaries – The Artist at Work brings together a powerful collection of artwork created through the Matheny Arts Access Program, a nationally recognized fine arts initiative that empowers artists with disabilities to create in the visual, literary, and performing arts. This exhibition celebrates the uniquely creative and compelling approaches these artists bring to the studio—shaped by curiosity, authenticity, and a limitless commitment to expression.
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Paper Trails by Laura Shabazz
Paper Trails reflects the traces we leave behind the evidence of living, thinking, and imagining embedded in discarded printed materials. Each scrap of paper once carried someone’s words, marks, or gestures, forming fragments of communication that together tell the quiet story of our existence. In this exhibition, Laura Shabazz diverts books, magazines, and ephemera from the landfill, transforming them into painterly, representational collages that explore the space between imagination and visual experience.
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A Family Affair
This exhibition celebrates the artistry and vision of Newark native Timothy J. Simmons, whose paintings offer a powerful counter-narrative to stereotypes surrounding African American life. Through intimate and “conventional” depictions of family moments of joy, music, marriage, and togetherness Simmons invites viewers into a dialogue on race, identity, and belonging. His work reflects a commitment to showcasing Black excellence and affirming that African American lives hold a vital place in the American story. A Family Affair is both a tribute to familial love and a call for social change through art.
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Hub City: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of History, Art, and Identity
Hub City is a multidisciplinary project that brings together visual art, theater, and music to examine America’s racial traumas through the lenses of family legacy, spirituality, and historical reckoning. Centered on the often-overlooked history of slavery and freedom in New Brunswick, the exhibition reimagines the city as a historic “hub” of both bondage and liberation.
Hub City was created while Jaymes Jorsling was in residence with Calabar Gallery at coLAB Arts in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
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Donations
Your support ensures we continue advancing education, preserving cultural heritage, and fostering spaces that amplify diverse voices and create lasting impact.
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Group Tour Benefits
Outside groups and school groups are invited to enjoy a comprehensive and enriching experience at the Liberty Hall Academic Center & Galleries. Each visit includes:
Full access to all on-campus galleries, featuring dynamic exhibitions that explore history, art, and culture.
A guided tour led by a highly qualified docent, who brings the exhibits to life with expert insights and engaging storytelling.
Whether you're planning a school field trip or a group outing, our tours offer a unique opportunity to learn, explore, and connect with the arts in a meaningful way.
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Rooted in her Caribbean and African heritage, spirituality and identity, Heather Williams’ work explores the concept of damage and repair. Known for her abstract paintings, figurative sculpture, and film, Williams’ artistic voice is clear, purposeful, and unwavering. An introspective person with a thoughtful narrative to share with the world, she does not shy away from difficult subject matter.
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After six decades of artistry, Minch, an award-winning New Jersey artist and Kean Alumna, returns to Kean with a powerful body of work: a collection of collages, sculptures, and paintings. The work exudes strength in a subtle feminine way that draws the viewer in closer for deeper inspection. Identity is a theme that threads through each piece giving her art depth and a genuine richness that celebrates her family’s diverse heritage, friends, and the human experience.
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Ubuhle Beads is a collective of female beadwork artists founded in 1999 by Bev Gibson and master beader Ntombephi Ntombela on a sugar plantation in South Africa that empowers and changes the perspective of African women. The organization has allowed for women artists of South Africa to have a platform to use their generational talents for financial independence that was not previously available.
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Weiling Pan thrives in creating multimedia works that tell original storylines and memories from her life. The texture and Impressionist-inspired style of her oil pastels mimics the warm, fuzzy feeling of thinking back fondly on places, people and experiences.
