ARC Gallery: Body Sovereignty

U.S. National Deadline: April 18, 2026 – ARC Gallery invites artists working across all media to submit work that claims for itself a radical ownership over sexuality, desire, and bodily identity. We are interested in art that refuses to be tamed — work that finds the erotic in the accidental, the absurd, the domestic, and the discarded. Work that borrows the visual language of instruction and mechanism only to subvert it. Work that is bold in its irreverence, polymorphic in its affect, and unafraid to blur lines between innocence and perversion, function and fantasy, the handmade and the found.

Exhibition dates: June 5-26, 2026.

ELIGIBILITY
Original works created within the last 5 years. All mediums and materials will be considered in addition to video and performance based arts. No projections or media installations will be accepted for this show due to space limitations. Open to all artists, national and international.

CURATOR
Danni O’Brien (she/they) is a queer, interdisciplinary artist based outside Baltimore, MD. Through scavenging and collecting, O’Brien builds enigmatic sculptures and reliefs from found objects, vintage patent diagrams, handmade paper pulp, ceramics, and the cast-offs of consumer culture. Her work grapples with queer identity, dystopian survival, and conspicuous consumption — playful and absurd on the surface, deeply meditative underneath. O’Brien has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, Asya Geisberg Gallery, Hamiltonian Gallery, and the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, and has held residencies with The Wassaic Project, Baltimore Clayworks, the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency, Byrdcliffe Colony, and Stove Works, among others. She is the recipient of Individual Artist Grants from the Belle Foundation for Cultural Development and the Maryland State Arts Council.

APPLY ONLINE – $40 Application

Notification of Acceptance: By email on May 6, 2026.

SALES
Works will be for sale unless noted as NFS (not for sale) on the entry form. ARC takes a 20% commission fee on works sold. So please price your work accordingly

About:
ARC Gallery and Educational Foundation is a non-profit, woman-run cooperative gallery dedicated to providing alternative space exhibition opportunities for innovative artists outside the commercial gallery system. Since 1973 ARC has given exposure and support to artists, providing an atmosphere for the continued development of artistic potential and experimentation.

ARC is run entirely by its women artist members; as a non-profit exhibition space. ARC receives some support from outside funding sources but not enough to cover our operating expenses. Thus, to provide the space and services we offer to exhibiting artists, we defray our expenses by charging exhibition fees. Each of the rental spaces in the gallery actually costs twice as much as we charge the artists.