"Art is nothing if you don't reach every segment of the people."
- Keith Haring
To be valued is to be human. To be seen and heard is an essential part of the human experience
Art of Being: Visible, the third installment of the Art of Being series, highlights the creativity of LGBTQ+ artists as they reflect on identity, resilience, and belonging.
Through a variety of mediums, the works on display invite us to consider how art can both affirm and challenge. Each piece tells a story of love, life, and self-expression, offering our community a chance to witness and celebrate diverse voices.
We invite you to experience this exhibition from September 19 to November 7 and join us in honoring the diverse voices and stories highlighted throughout.
Get to know some of the participating artists showcased in the gallery and discover their artistic influences and creative processes.
Shannon Ivey, MFA AEA PCC, is a professional actor, director, TEDx speaker, and ICF-certified coach specializing in storytelling, leadership, and creative empowerment.
She is the founder of the award-winning storytelling program and podcast: #whatshesaidproject, Shannon has built a career at the intersection of art, activism, and embodied empowerment.
I came out "later" in life.
Around that time, I was trying to get back into reading. I tried lots of writers, but nothing connected until Melisa Febos. I devoured Abandon Me and then Body Work. I just finished Dry Season and highly recommend it to anyone exploring recovery.
Honestly, finding queer memoirists has made me feel understood in a way I didn't know I needed. My first queer literary love (other than Tennessee Williams) was Mary Oliver. I am a devout Mary Oliver fan, and use her work in almost every workshop I teach.
Lastly, I am enthralled by several of our national level writers who are queer, who live in Columbia, and I call my friends: Evie Bishop and Ed Madden. Connecting with queer writers has been a great joy, and has me wanting to write a second book, but this time, much queerer.
Alejandro García-Lemos is a visual artist based in Columbia, South Carolina and New Orleans, Louisiana. He holds a MA in Latin American Studies from Florida International University in Miami, and a BA in Graphic Design from the School of Arts at the National University in Bogotá, Colombia. His work focuses on social issues, mostly on aspects of immigration, sexuality, biculturalism, religion and community. The summer of 2025, Alejandro spent the month of July as an artist in residency of Buihno, ArtLab in Messejana, Portugal.
In the [above] picture, I am holding the portrait of Britt, my partner and husband of 25 years (Oil on Canvas, Messejana, Portugal, July 2025 ). I think this image shows better the importance of Gay families, something that was unthinkable when I was younger.
Also, in terms of my influences I will like to mention the following three artists:
Demetria Blooms (She/They) is a Black, Queer, Fat, & Disabled artist and spiritual practitioner from South Carolina. Their works draw on their lived experiences and spiritual practices. Through different mediums, Demetria weaves together memory, emotion, and the mystic to create art that tells stories, promotes dreaming, and reminds us of the power within.
Mickalene Thomas' work first called out to me when I was browsing a bookstore in a rural town in South Carolina. Her loud, colorful, flamboyant art felt out of place in the space, much like I do most times exploring the world as a Black, Fat, Queer person.
I flipped through the pages and fell in love with her use of materials, color, photography and the stories she was crafting with each curated image. I spent many years in journalism as a storyteller, and her work made me stop and think about how I could weave different textures and pieces together to make big, bold statements.
Shaina Manuel is a South Carolina-based artist and educator whose work explores identity, emotion, and connection through portraiture and intimate moments. With a background in art education, she balances teaching with a personal practice that leans into quiet observation and layered meaning.
J.C. Leyendecker: A predecessor to Norman Rockwell, Leyendecker’s work has always inspired me. I love his bold, physical style and the way he captured real people and everyday life. I’m especially drawn to how he subtly embedded controversial themes for that time into mainstream advertisements—his daring and subversive approach resonates deeply with me.
Annie Leibovitz: Her stunning compositions and use of subdued color palettes (and black and white photography) have strongly influenced my sense of mood and storytelling through images.
George Wenzel completed a B.A. of Art from University of Florida and later a M.F.A. in Graphic Design from Rochester Institute of Technology. He was an illustrator and graphic designer in educational publishing in Chicago. He taught basic design, graphic design and design history, as an associate professor at University of the Pacific in California. The work that he created during that time was included in several exhibitions in California.
His paintings have been exhibited in Mérida and in Acapulco Mexico, but his most recent work in was included at Stormwater Gallery in Columbia, "Building Bridges" Exhibition, in conjunction with the Harriet Hancock Center. He also was a participant in the 2025 Columbia Open Studios. He focused on painting in 2019 after he retired from teaching. He resides in Columbia SC and has spent several years in Mexico.
My work explores emotional states that resist easy definition-tension, disorientation, attraction, identity and the need for recognition and belonging. I use abstraction, symbolic forms, and layered imagery to evoke inner conflict and shifting psychological landscapes.
Rather than illustrating specific narratives, the paintings create spaces where emotion and meaning collide where beauty and danger coexist, and where the viewer is asked to confront the pull of the unknown. Each painting begins intuitively, evolving through addition, erasure and distortion until something essential surfaces. I'm drawn to contrasts: control and chaos, clarity and confusion, surface and depth, all issues confronting the LGBTQ+ community in the current political and cultural landscape.
The result is work that reflects not some fixed idea but a process of becoming-open to interpretation, and emotional resonance. The paintings do not offer clear answers but they ask you to stay with them, to feel rather than resolve.
Jackie Bobo is the vibrant force behind Bobo to the Max, an art brand that blends playfulness with depth through her signature Happy Spooky aesthetic—bright, bold colors paired with ghosts, spiders, and other whimsical motifs that capture both joy and complexity.
A former Speech-Language Pathologist, Jacqueline brings nearly a decade of expertise in communication to her creative work, treating painting as its own language—one that holds nuance, from the happy to the spooky. Her pieces and products act as symbols of self-acceptance, inviting people to unmask, connect authentically, and carry reminders of belonging into their everyday lives.
Myself — It’s easy to be yourself when you’re not masking. Painting became my portal into what lies beneath, and each Bobo I create reflects that unmasking.
Mickalene Thomas — Mickalene Thomas’ work expands the representation of Black femininity in ways that resonate with me: multidimensional, vulnerable, and empowered. I admire how her vision creates space for identities like mine to be seen fully.
Jean-Michel Basquiat — Basquiat inspires me in the way he turned chaos and intensity into art that feels alive, like it has a pulse. I’m also partial because we share the same initials.
Allyson Nied is a teacher and multimedia artist located in Columbia, SC. Making art is how she makes sense of and connect with the world.
Her current passion surrounds the female figure. She tries to portray the beauty of the female form as well as context of how it feels being a woman in our society. She enjoys using light, shadow, and color to create a dynamic composition while keeping the subject matter simple.
A queer artist who has had a big influence on me and my art is Frida Kahlo. While her marriage to Diego Rivera was highly publicized, it is widely known and documented in her own writings that she also had relationships with women, which I relate to as a married bisexual woman. She also suffered back and neck injuries from an accident, and expressed her chronic pain and depression through her paintings. I relate to this as I fractured my back and neck in my sports growing up, and have also used my art to deal with those traumatic incidents and the pain.
This quote from Frida is how I view my inspiration to paint myself and other women. To express my experiences but also the shared experiences of women:
"I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better."
This blog post was written and edited by Richland Library's Rainbow Committee.
The Rainbow Committee team is a staff-led team at Richland Library. Their purpose is to advance Richland Library’s commitment to the values of equity, diversity, and inclusion. The Rainbow Committee works diligently to create a welcoming, safe, and inclusive space for LGBTQIA2S+ customers, staff, and allies.
