August 8 through August 31, 2023

Reception: Thursday August 9, 5:30-7:30pm

Gallery Paule Anglim is pleased to present John Hiltunen + 1, an exhibition of works by artists from Creative Growth Art Center, Oakland. Curated by Matthew Higgs, Director of White Columns in New York, the exhibition is a select constellation of works rotating around the figurative collages of John Hiltunen.

Since 1974, Creative Growth has been an art space for adult artists with developmental, mental and physical disabilities, providing studio space and mentors, as well as an exhibition space. Encouraging work in all media (fiber arts, wood, painting, drawing, ceramics, photography printmaking and video), Creative Growth has promoted and exhibited the creative output of over 140 artists. Long dedicated in its service to the art of people with disabilities, Creative Growth has developed an international audience and presence, acting as a model for other enterprises abroad.

“The work produced by Creative Growth’s artists represents everything I could hope for in art: it is simultaneously joyful, sincere, obsessive and puzzling, and forcefully reminds me of why I remain committed to the potential of art to illuminate our lives.”

- Matthew Higgs, Director and Chief Curator of White Columns, New York

Matthew Higgs has been a devoted advocate for the artists of Creative Growth, curating and encouraging exhibitions in private galleries and museums internationally. His insight has helped widen appreciation of  human creativity such that more exhibitions are dispensing with divisions between trained and untrained, contemporary artists with or without disabilities.