Meet 3 Artists Creating Queer-Influenced Work for ArtPrize in Grand Rapids
Exhibits focus on affirmation, inspiration and the amplification of marginalized voices
Ahead of ArtPrize, the annual international art competition that takes over much of downtown Grand Rapids each year, hundreds of artists are finalizing details for exhibits featuring every imaginable medium, subject matter and scale. From massive canvases to kinetic sculptures, immersive hands-on installations, classic portraiture and evocative modern works, attendees will be hard-pressed to view every work of art on display at the 16-day event. Organizers are working with over 150 exhibit sites, including art galleries, outdoor public spaces, retail locations, churches and more. All told, ArtPrize, now in its 15th year, anticipates more than 1,100 entries to compete in the event, set for Sept. 13-28.
Unlike a typical juried art competition, ArtPrize winners are selected by attendees, who vote for the pieces that move them. For the three Michigan-based artists Pride Source interviewed, ArtPrize is much more about the art than the prize.
Isabel Dowell
“What Does It Mean to Be Queer?”
ArtRat Gallery (46 Division Ave. S., Grand Rapids)
Grand Rapids photographer Isabel Dowell explores gender and sexual identity in a photo exhibit featuring couples who wrote handwritten responses to the question “How does your gender and/or sexual identity influence who you are?” Each couple’s photo is displayed twice alongside the written responses but without identifiers. Many of the works feature individuals who present with less overt displays of typical gender roles or identities, leaving viewers in the dark about which member of which couple wrote each response.
Dowell, whose subjects often include artists and musicians, is a graduate student at nearby Aquinas College working toward a master's in clinical mental health counseling. A sexuality counseling course inspired her ArtPrize exhibit. “I thought it would be really beneficial to my work to explore sexuality a little bit more and to just get to know the people around me who identified in the LGBTQ+ community,” Dowell tells Pride Source.
As she put together the exhibit, Dowell says she found herself in interesting conversations with her subjects, especially among couples where one person identified as queer and the other as straight and cisgender. “People who identified as straight and cisgender had never really had to think about how their gender or sexual identity influences them,” she says. “I had to explain to them that even if they were a straight cisgender male or female, the way in which they navigate the world based on their gender still makes an impact on them. It was really important to me to have those conversations as well as giving voice to the queer individuals in my project.”
“The point of my project,” Dowell adds, “is just really exploring queer individuals in queer relationships and also puts an emphasis on queer people in heteronormative relationships.”
Craig Rhyan
“Fireflies Seeking Calm and Chaos”
Outside the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum (303 Pearl St. NW., Grand Rapids)
There’s a good chance that Grand Rapids area residents have seen the work of out gay artist Craig Rhyan at a local park — his installation “Connections” at Briggs Park features hooks to hang a hammock — or in prominent locations like the base of the city’s famed Blue Bridge, where his “Lake Sturgeon” wooden sculpture is currently on display. The 7-foot fish weighs nearly 200 pounds and was built to match the size of the largest documented sturgeon caught in Michigan.
For ArtPrize, the 2024 Motu Viget Grant recipient has been finalizing a kinetic piece, “Fireflies Seeking Calm and Chaos,” that will be displayed outside the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum. Outside is where you’ll find most of Rhyan’s art. Growing up in a small town in eastern Michigan, Rhyan says, outside is where he spent most of his time.
“We just weren’t the family to be inside watching TV,” he explains. “We were outside exploring nature, building forts in the woods, turning over logs and finding creatures. Those childhood experiences inspire my artwork now — especially how nature relates to humanity and how that relationship can sometimes be a struggle, with humans kind of fighting for territory in a way. It’s also about showing nature in different ways. Some of the things that may go unnoticed in nature, I can give them a pedestal, so to speak, make them larger scale or use unique colors so you notice them more.”
Rhyan’s “Fireflies” includes multiple moving lights representing lightning bugs. “Each light moves and interacts with the others, and they’re coming out of a bed of black cables,” Rhyan explains. “So, again, it’s that kind of nature seeking calmness, surrounded by the city buzz — it’s the idea of humanity and nature interacting.”
Pat ApPaul
“Sovereign”
En Vivo Church (133 Caledonia St. NE., Grand Rapids)
A Welsh photographer who moved to Michigan for love, Pat ApPaul has built his photographer career on centering the voices of marginalized people throughout the world. His work has taken him to war-torn regions like Palestine and Iraq, but more recently, ApPaul has been inspired by life much closer to home, pointing his lens toward people living and working in Muskegon.
ApPaul spent time documenting people dealing with mental health issues in his work “The Stand,” which focused on a mental health facility in Muskegon. That work was turned into a book of the same name and was displayed as part of an exhibition downtown. ApPaul’s newer work, “Sovereign,” is another take on the city he now calls home — one focused on the unexpected joy and affirmation he found among the local drag performer community.
“I wanted to focus on this community to find out why they are doing this work, how they move through life, how drag gives them agency,” ApPaul explains. The photographer did several shoots with the performers, who came from large urban centers like Chicago but mostly from small communities in Michigan, before the venue closed. “And after it was all over, I realized I really had something special here in these images,” he says. The photos represent a wide range of genders, sexualities, cultures and backgrounds. Importantly, they painted a picture of a true community of support and challenged perceptions about drag at a time when the artform is under attack. ApPaul says he felt it was important that as a straight, male LGBTQ+ ally that he shine a light on a culture that he finds inspiring — drag, he says, is something worthwhile he feels many people don’t understand is happening in their own backyards.
In addition to ApPaul’s ArtPrize exhibit, his drag-focused work will be available in an upcoming 52-page zine, also called “Sovereign,” the product of a recently funded Kickstarter campaign.
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