[Image description: A rectangular graphic with a cream colored background. A black banner wraps the upper portion of the graphic with an intersectional-pride colored border. White text reads "Fine Art Galleries" to the right is the logo and address for Bradbury-Sullivan Center. Black text underneath reads "Creating Home by Kevelis Matthews-Alvarado (they/he/she)," "Exhibit: January 16 - February 17," and "Artist Reception: January 19 6-8 p.m." A photograph of Kevelis wearing a black sweater is in the lower left corner. To the right are examples of Kevelis's artwork that will be featured in their exhibit.]

The Fine Art Galleries at Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center hosts art exhibits that celebrate LGBTQ+ artists and LGBTQ-themed art. Exhibits are professionally curated and each exhibit includes an artist reception.

We also host exhibits that bring LGBTQ+ history to life - featuring materials from the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive, or hosted in partnership with external organizations. 

We are thrilled to announce our next exhibition "Creating Home/Creando Hoga" by Kevelis Matthews-Alvarado (they/he/she). The exhibit will be in our Fine Art Galleries at our center from January 16th through February 17th. Mark your calendars for January 19th from 6-8pm to meet the artist  and celebrate queer art! There will be food, music, and wonderful conversation. Read more about this exhibit below. For any questions about this exhibit, please reach out to [email protected].

Creating Home/Creando Hoga Brief Statement:

Creating Home (2023) is a labor of love. Creating Home is an ode to becoming, an ode to transformation. With its earliest pieces conceived just a few months shy of the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020, this collection was almost entirely shaped in and through quarantine. The context of a global pandemic illuminated my need to create art as a means of coping, surviving, and healing.

Thus, as a mixed media collection, Creating Home recognizes the physical body as a home and explores themes of identity, self-acceptance, nature as a catalyst for healing, self-love, and chosen family. 

Artist Bio:

Kevelis Matthews-Alvarado is a queer afro-latine multimedia interdisciplinary artist, writer, and scholar currently based on Lenape land (Bethlehem, PA). Kevelis has a BA in Africana Studies (2020), a BA in Public Health (2020), and a MA in English (2021) from Lehigh University.

As a self-taught artist, Kevelis explores spectrums of race, gender, and sexuality as they seek to better understand their own identity by mixing and layering different media together to depict something whole. Kevelis’s work is informed by and situated within the radical Black tradition of resisting through art. Inspired by historic Black art movements like the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and the creation of Hip Hop, Kevelis draws upon ancestral connections and uses art to radically imagine future landscapes which center BIPOC queer love, joy, and community.  

Kevelis co-curated a group exhibition entitled THE ARTCHIVE, showcasing works created in an interactive workshop series in 2022. As a collection, THE ARTCHIVE (2022) underscores creativity, art, and performance as political tools, reminding viewers that activism can take many forms and that not all protests look the same. Kevelis’s work has also been featured in a group show titled Queering Care (2022) at the Banana Factory. In January 2023 Kevelis will present their first solo exhibition show titled Creating Home at the Bradbury-Sullivan Center in Allentown, PA.