{"id":135166,"date":"2025-09-05T17:41:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T17:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/135166\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T17:41:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T17:41:14","slug":"art-and-minds-fountain-house-gallery-celebrates-25-years-on-9th-avenue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/135166\/","title":{"rendered":"Art and Minds \u2014 Fountain House Gallery Celebrates 25 Years on 9th Avenue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Skaters glide through a Central Park tableau made of fabric, while Superman takes a well-earned rest in his living room, and a collection of moody dogs converge. Together, these works of art, spanning the past two and a half decades, represent a fraction of over 100 pieces created by 93 artists on display as Fountain House Gallery celebrates its 25th anniversary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"FountainFountain House Gallery last night at the opening of their 25th Anniversary Exhibition. Photo: Lucas Brito<\/p>\n

The gallery, on the corner of 9th Avenue and W48th Street, was founded in 2000 by a determined group of clubhouse members alongside the Hell\u2019s Kitchen institution\u2019s former president Kenneth Dudek. It provides a vital space for Fountain House\u2019s members<\/a> \u2014\u00a0all people living with mental illness \u2014\u00a0to display and market their art while building an inclusive, creative community.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The anniversary exhibit, which opened last night (Thursday) and will run through October 29, honors the artists actively showing at the gallery and \u201clegacy\u201d artists from the past quarter century, all of whom were invited to submit works.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important to me that all of the artists who submitted artworks be represented in this tribute show, because they are the heart and soul of the gallery,\u201d said Martha Henry, the show\u2019s curator.<\/p>\n

The gallery walls are covered in art of every shape, size and color, displayed in a similar style to a 19th-century art salon, and creating an immersive sensory experience for viewers.<\/p>\n

\"FountainMartha Henry, the curator of Fountain House Gallery\u2019s 25th Anniversary Exhibition. Photo: Lucas Brito<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no central theme running through the pieces, which range from landscapes, to still lifes, to abstraction \u2014 but portraits make up 40% of the work on show. \u201cPerhaps because portraits reveal our identity and connect us to our shared humanity,\u201d said Martha.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sentiment that rings true across more than 100 shows at the gallery, some of which focused on navigating life with a mental health diagnosis. \u201cThere really isn\u2019t one single sort of tone that you ever get from the gallery,\u201d said director for almost four years, Rachel Weisman. \u201cYou might walk in and not everything resonates with you, but I can be fairly confident that you will find something that you connect with.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Echoing Fountain House\u2019s broader mission, the gallery serves a dual goal of helping its members, who range from professionals to self-trained artists, \u201ceither find their purpose or re-find their purpose\u201d in their lives. It also works to establish their presence in New York City\u2019s greater arts landscape and destigmatize mental illness. The public is invited to see \u201cwhat it looks like to have people that are more than a diagnosis, to be able to learn from our artists in the same way that you would go to the Met or MoMA,\u201d Rachel said.<\/p>\n

\"FountainFountain House Gallery director Rachel Weisman at last night\u2019s show. Photo: Lucas Brito<\/p>\n

Members are involved in every aspect of operations. They curate shows, submit work, and vote on exhibition themes. When a work sells, the artists generally take home 60% of the sale \u2014 higher than most gallery\u2019s 50\/50 split. Five hundred works sold last year, to buyers from New York to Taiwan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an entry back into your life,\u201d said Vermillion, a visual and performance artist who joined the clubhouse and gallery in 2016. She has curated and displayed her work in shows at the gallery, and was so moved by its model that she decided to push beyond its borders and create new connections across the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After making a series of cold calls and emails to art institutions in other countries, Vermillion established a connection with the Bethlem Museum of The Mind<\/a> in the United Kingdom, an art museum that, like Fountain House, displays the work of people with mental health problems. Now, artists from both sides of the pond meet regularly to collaborate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Vermilion<\/p>\n

\"Fountain
\nVermillion\u2019s art is on show at Fountain House Gallery. Photos: FHG & Lucas Brito<\/p>\n

Vermillion\u2019s art is varied; she\u2019s performed a one-woman-show, On cats and dogs and other family revelations, at the Under St Marks Theater, created a sculpture on Governors Island out of 1,000 blue bottles, and curated a show dedicated to mushrooms. On display now is one of a series of abstract, meditative drawings. \u201cThey could be neuro synapses, they could be plants, could be feathers,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Part of what makes the Fountain House Gallery so special is the peer network and connections it has fostered between artists, who also have the opportunity to use its studio space in Long Island City, and push each other \u201cin the ebbs and flow of what a career in art looks like,\u201d said Rachel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhichever way I look, I have to thank Fountain House. If I had an idea, they would help me run with it. You hear in your heart I could do this, I could do that \u2014 but at Fountain House they always say yes,\u201d\u00a0said Vermillion.<\/p>\n

\"Fountain<\/p>\n

\"Fountain<\/p>\n

\"Fountain<\/p>\n

\"Fountain<\/p>\n

\"Fountain<\/p>\n

\"Fountain<\/p>\n

\"Fountain
\nScenes from Fountain House Gallery\u2019s 25th Anniversary Exhibition. Photos: Lucas Brito<\/p>\n

Fountain House Gallery<\/a> is located at 702 9th Avenue at the corner of W48th Street. They are open from 12-6pm Tuesday to Thursday (closing at 5pm on Wednesdays) and from 1-7pm on Saturday. The 25th anniversary exhibition will be on view through October 29.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Skaters glide through a Central Park tableau made of fabric, while Superman takes a well-earned rest in his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1029,228,226,227,229,88,84875],"class_list":["post-135166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-art","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-fountainhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}