Exhibitions

PROOF OF LIVES: EVIDENCE OF PRESENCE, RESISTANCE, AND ENDURANCE

Slocumb Galleries (ETSU) / 232 Sherrod Dr., Johnson City, TN February 25 - March 31st (Reception: February 25 4:00pm - 6:00pm)

Bailey Adkins, William Arrowood, Alysen Matthews, Sarah Spillers, Haeden Willis, Gage Shrout, Chunru Zhang

ETSU Department of Art & Design with Slocumb Galleries proudly present Proof of Lives: Evidence of Presence, Resistance, and Endurance with Reception and Artists Conversations on February 25, Wednesday from 5-7 pm at the Slocumb Galleries, with Guest of Honor, Dr. Sharon McGee, Dean of Graduate School, ETSU.

Co-curated by Haeden Willis and Sarah Spillers, this exhibition presents the work of the ETSU Department of Art and Design’s current graduate students Bailey Adkins, William Arrowood, Alysen Matthews, Sarah Spillers, Haeden Willis, Gage Shrout, and Chunru Zhang. Exhibition is on view from February 16 – March 13, 2026.

Proof of Lives: Evidence of Presence, Resistance, and Endurance brings together artists whose work functions as testimony to lived experience. Evidence is shown through trace. Marks of emotion, repetition, labor, consumption, and vulnerability suggest presence within systems that shape, limit, and surveil bodies and identities. Across these artists’ various practices, presence is shown through attention and labor. Slow acts of making push back against speed and consumption. Marks document time and emotion. The act of making resists erasure by making lived experiences visible. The active refusal of passivity, silence, and imposed narratives are part of the ongoing fight to protect one’s identity and existence. These artists challenge consumer culture, gender expectations, and emotional suppression. Humor, discomfort, familiar imagery, and documentation are used to engage the viewer and reclaim agency. Together, these artists reveal that the persistence to tend, feel, resist, and remain become undeniable proof of life.