38a

Located at 5929 Penn Ave in the heart of Pittsburgh’s historic East Liberty neighborhood, 38a Art Gallery was created to serve the city’s vibrant artist community with a space open to emerging and established Black, Brown and minority creator-led exhibits, programs, events and workshops. With an emphasis on arts education, exposure and discovery, the 38a Art Gallery is our commitment to offer equitable and accessible space in the ever-growing global arts scene, bridging the gap in opportunity and access.
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Past Exhibits

X and O's Exhibit

X’s and O’s is an exhibition that examined our relationship to the game of basketball. Through photography, video, and mixed media sculpture, artists survey their personal connections to the sport to tell a story about its cultural significance and the ways it shapes lives. Featured artists include Trent Bozeman, Tay Butler, Terrance Favers, Don Prophete, Michael Thompson, and SHAN Wallace.

“I still see you, even in the dark”, A solo exhibition by Evangeline Mensah-Agyekum

This exhibition showcases the depth of her exploration into themes of identity, memory, and resilience, inviting viewers to contemplate and connect with the hidden stories and emotions that lie beneath the surface.Celebrate the artistic achievements of Evangeline Mensah-Agyekum, appreciate her courage as a self-taught artist, and engage with the diverse perspectives and stories brought forth by Petra Floyd.

"Does it Rain Diamonds on Neptune?" by Steve Alexis

“I’m not trying to create pictures or just paint patterns. I want to provoke feelings of dissociation. To question your perspective and yourself. The instance when you aren’t the main character. All of the excitement and terror of those moments is what abstraction has done for me. The objects I make are vehicles for myself and the viewer to exist in those disparate states of being.”

Does it Rain Diamonds on Neptune? is a solo exhibition by Steve Alexis that aims to challenge perceptions around what abstract work can function as. Through this selection of works, Alexis encourages the audience to look past the superficial, and consider a space that exists in-between painting and sculpture without attempting to resolve or make sense of what’s being viewed. Combining pattern making with a layering of elements, the work is characterized by its subjective notions of painting in its basic form, with each stroke functioning as a reaction to a previous action. This process, combined with how the work is hung, relates to movement and bodies, but rather than depict them in an overt way, Alexis focuses instead on the idea of the body, and asks that viewers consider each mark made as a result of his body interacting with the works as they are created, rather than form. The essence of the maker is found in the work. The maker’s emotions are tied to the work by proxy, and it’s the process that creates the form. This is further reinforced by his usage of material, in particular Mica powder, which has the qualities of metal without being metal, and in more static pieces presents the idea of sculpture in its purest form: a representative of something abstract.