Link to register is in our bio. Don’t miss this very special opportunity to learn hanji papermaking this month at Anchorlight! Registration for workshops and private instruction with @hendersonpaperandbook (2026 Brightwork Fellow) is now open! Limited slots available due to space constraints so don’t wait to register.

Let's write poetry in response to @charlesjoynerart 's work at @_anchorlight_ . Free to attend. DM to secure your place. May 9th and May 17th 12-2p at @_anchorlight_ with your hosts @paradigmadozen and @chris_tonelli

Big thanks to everyone who came out for the opening of Charles Joyner’s new exhibition and our Spring Open House this weekend! We hardly had time to take any photos but here are just a few of the evening. Patterns of Commonality by Charles Joyner is now available to view by appointment (book easily on our website) and through the public events listed here. The poetry workshops hosted by Line of Sight are now FREE and you can register by sending a DM to @paradigmadozen . There will be a curated public reading of poems written over the course of the exhibition and that date is TBD. And definitely don’t miss the ARTIST TALK JUNE 20, the last day of the exhibition!

We’re busy over here getting ready to open our artist studios, gallery and project space to the public for Spring Open House this Saturday! New spring plantings thanks to @hendersonpaperandbook new work by @lukebuch in the project space, and a new gallery exhibition by Charles Joyner. Among the 20+ artist studios you can visit @aliafineartstudios and try your hand at drawing a live (clothed) model during the event. See you May 2, 4-7pm

It’s time for Spring Open House! In addition to open studios this event is the opening of the solo exhibition Patterns of Commonality by Charles Joyner in our gallery. If that wasn’t enough, we are also presenting new work by @lukebuch in the project space!

LAST CALL! It’s the final week to view Sands of Seven Hills by 2025 Brightwork Fellow Isys Hennigar! Here’s how: By appointment Thursday & Friday 1:00-5:00. Visits can be scheduled on our website. PUBLIC POETRY READING curated by Line of Sight, Friday at 6:30pm. Hear poems written by gallery visitors over the course of the exhibition inspired by the work. Line of Sight is Chris Tonelli @soandsobooks and Sam Pepple @paradigmadozen PUBLIC ARTIST HOURS with @isyshennigar on the final day, Saturday 4/11, 1:00-5:00pm. No appointment needed, drop in, meet the artist and learn more about the work. Here’s a closer look at the details and depth of craftsmanship of this work, all of which invokes real and reimagined ecological encounters, exploring the ways in which the natural world is constructed, interpreted, and mythologized.

These are the final days to view the solo exhibition of 2025 Brightwork Fellow Isys Hennigar in our gallery! Sands of Seven Hills considers landscape as a site of fantasy, exploring the ways in which the natural world is constructed, interpreted,and mythologized. This piece, Under an ardent sun, is based on sculptural renditions of colonial map illustrations and explores imagined versions of place, with invented creatures and plants standing in as allegories of agricultural wealth and the unknown. Throughout the exhibition, myth and history exist as living materials with potential to be re-mixed. Inherited histories of imperial imagination and extractive land use are reassembled,imagining forms of transformation and resistance within untamed creatures and strange Fruit. Appointments are available Thursday-Sunday and can be booked easily through our website. The artist will be hosting on the final day of the exhibition, Saturday April 11, 1:00-5:00p. No appointment is needed for these special, artist hosted hours. Isys Hennigar, Under the rays of an ardent sun Walnut, dyed walnut, glazed stoneware 80 x 38 x 16 inches 2025 @isyshennigar

Announcing Patterns of Commonality by Charles Joyner, opening Saturday May 2, 4:00-7:00p during our annual Spring Open House! Charles Joyner’s journey in life and art are inextricably connected. His path extends from rural Johnston County, North Carolina to Westport, Connecticut to college in Iowa and Greensboro, to a career at NC State University that leads to Ghana, West Africa. Along the way, the artist, with innate ease, confidence and faith, moved forward to confront one new experience after another. A broad and expansive education fueled Joyner’s identity, vision, and career as an artist and educator who impacted the lives of many throughout communities in the United States and West Africa. Joyner’s art resides at the intersection of two cultures: cultures that overlap yet are separated by years of falsehoods and misconceptions. His curiosity about African and African American cultures is sparked by his research of their customs and traditions. His most recent works to be displayed at Anchorlight, are a series of multi-layered collages that integrate his own photographic imagery with cultural symbols and patterns abstracted from West African textiles, crafts and architecture. Utilizing the medium of collage, he has developed a personal technique, characterized by the highly sensitive use of composition, and a careful blend of painting and printmaking. The results are the creation of mixed media works that explore cross-cultural connections, ancestry, rituals, religion, and spirituality. Image 1: Charles Joyner, A Caged Bird Sings of Freedom, Mixed media on canvas, A visualization of Maya Angelou’s poem “Caged Bird, 1983.”

This Saturday! Gallery opens at 2:00, conversation between artists Isys Hennigar and Hồng-Ân Trương begins at 3:00. One of the works in Hennigar’s solo exhibition that will be discussed is the meticulously crafted floor mosaic, titled Threshold. This ceramic work is based on an ancient Roman mosaic on the Saiss Plain of Morocco in which the mythological poet Orpheus charms animals with music. In carved porcelain reliefs, Threshold reimagines the conjured scene with animals that became extinct in North Africa and the Southeastern US during the 19th and 20th centuries. Throughout the exhibition, myth and history exist as living materials with potential to be re-mixed. Inherited histories of imperial imagination and extractive land use are reassembled, imagining forms of transformation and resistance. Hồng-Ân Trương is an artist and writer whose work explores immigrant, refugee, and decolonial narratives and subjectivities. She has exhibited widely with recent solo exhibitions at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute in Cambridge and island gallery in NYC. Her writing has appeared in Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the Arts edited by Christopher K. Ho and Daisy Nam, and in American Art in Asia: Artistic Practice and Theoretical Divergence, edited by Michelle Lim and Kyunghee Pyun. She has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a MacDowell Residency Herb Alpert Fellow, and just received An Anonymous Was A Woman award. Hồng-Ân lives in Durham, North Carolina where she is an organizer and teaches in the Department of Art & Art History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 2025 Brightwork Fellow Isys Hennigar is a North Carolina based artist working primarily in ceramics, metal, and wood. She received her MFA from the University of Georgia and BFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the 2024 recipient of the South Arts North Carolina State Fellowship, and her work has been shown nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at the American Museum of Ceramic Art and the North Carolina Museum of Art.

This Saturday in the gallery, don’t miss this conversation between artists Isys Hennigar and Hồng-Ân Trương! They will be discussing the work in Hennigar’s solo exhibition, Sands of Seven Hills. This work explores the resonant histories, myths, and landscapes of two coastal mining towns. Throughout the work, myth and history exist as living materials with potential to be re-mixed. Inherited histories of imperial imagination and extractive land use are reassembled, imagining forms of transformation and resistance. Hồng-Ân Trương is an artist and writer whose work explores immigrant, refugee, and decolonial narratives and subjectivities. She has exhibited widely with recent solo exhibitions at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute in Cambridge and island gallery in NYC. Her writing has appeared in Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the Arts edited by Christopher K. Ho and Daisy Nam, and in American Art in Asia: Artistic Practice and Theoretical Divergence, edited by Michelle Lim and Kyunghee Pyun. She has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a MacDowell Residency Herb Alpert Fellow, and just received An Anonymous Was A Woman award. Hồng-Ân lives in Durham, North Carolina where she is an organizer and teaches in the Department of Art & Art History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 2025 Brightwork Fellow Isys Hennigar is a North Carolina based artist working primarily in ceramics, metal, and wood. She received her MFA from the University of Georgia and BFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the 2024 recipient of the South Arts North Carolina State Fellowship, and her work has been shown nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at the American Museum of Ceramic Art and the North Carolina Museum of Art. Gallery will open at 2:00, talk begins at 3:00!

Visit the gallery this Saturday, March 7, anytime between 1-5p for a chance to meet artist Isys Hennigar and view her solo exhibition, Sands of Seven Hills. No appointment is needed for these special artist-hosted hours. Sands of Seven Hills considers landscape as a site of fantasy, exploring the ways in which the natural world is constructed, interpreted, and mythologized. The exhibition revolves around the histories and mythologized landscapes of two coastal mining towns, in North Carolina and southern Morocco. Through reimagined encounters between creatures, culture, and geography, the show considers placemaking and the ways in which history is articulated through landscape. ​​Isys Hennigar is a North Carolina based artist working primarily in ceramics, as well as metal and wood. As the 2025 Brightwork Fellow, Hennigar spent a year in residence at Anchorlight and this exhibition is the culmination of her studio time with us. The Brightwork Fellowship provides a 500+ square-foot studio space at Anchorlight, an exhibition opportunity in our gallery, and an unrestricted financial award of $50,000.00 to one North Carolina based artist per year who is at a pivotal moment in their career.

(part 2) Opening night of Sands of Seven Hills! Thank you to all who came out to celebrate the work of 2025 Brightwork Fellow Isys Hennigar. There was so much love and camaraderie in the room, a much needed balm. Congratulations to @isyshennigar on this incredible body of work! Sands of Seven Hills is available by appointment (and a few public events) through 4/11/26.