Opening 2pm, Friday, September 25, 2026 at The Whitney Center in Hamden, Connecticut. The Whitney Center is an exceptional retirement community with a professional art gallery on premises. This exhibition draws from the second sentence of the Whitney Center’s mission statement: Our mission is the expression of our organization’s belief that every individual, regardless of age, physical ability, or cognitive capacity, has the inalienable and self-determined right to engage in life toward the pursuit of their personal fulfillment. That’s a powerful statement of the ideal human condition, especially in the year the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary, given its similarity to language found in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence. Individualism, inalienable rights (unalienable on our founding charter), and the pursuit of happiness—here understood as fulfillment, which is not quite the same thing, but close enough for art’s sake—are all the building blocks of a national identity that, when visually represented, also make for interesting pictures.
