At the end of last year, I said I wanted to see “more art with teeth.” 2025 is opening with a big ol’ bite in that regard. I started my Year In Art with the incendiary “Waking The Witch” at Living Arts last month, and this month’s gallery openings show no sign of letting up.
When the world is falling apart, in between doing what we can by making calls and showing up to protests, making time for art is its own act of resistance. Art is autonomy, defiance, connection. Art is radical expression—a movement against the silencing and gaslighting that runs rampant through political movements bent on control. In a time like this, listening to the voice of an individual creator is one of the most empowering things you can do.
You can find a full list of First Friday events in the Arts District here. And here are some of the voices I’m most excited to listen to this First Friday (and First Saturday!) and throughout the month:
“Wordplay” by May Yang
Liggett Studio, 314 S. Kenosha Ave.
Opening Friday, 5-8pm
Tulsa’s May Yang—the founder of Flash Flood Print Studios—makes gestural, intensely saturated art using a language of color and shape and movement that hits right in the sweet spot of my brain. It’s “abstract,” but that doesn’t mean unemotional or inaccessible: quite the opposite. The relief paintings in her solo show, “Wordplay,” draw from typography and handwriting and come out of her experience as a first-generation Asian American in Oklahoma, where her frustration around communication barriers inspired a creative journey toward reconciling different layers of language.
“Words exist at the heart of each work I create,” she writes. “These source words are digitally cut, resized, and obscured into new compositions, resulting in paintings that are vibrantly colored, active in composition, and reminiscent of a hidden language. The physical act of painting serves as a cathartic and compulsive ritual. The act of continually redrawing the composition (digitally, in tracing, and finally in paint) is integral to the process, mirroring the degradation of communication over time.”
“Backstories” by Doug Cannell
108 Contemporary, 108 Reconciliation Way
Opening Friday, 6-9pm
What are these things? I can’t wait to ask in person, and artist Doug Cannell is promising answers. Or at least stories. Or maybe just opportunities for further questions? Anyway, I’m already satisfied just looking at the preview images, which show the Detroit sculptor taking big, weird, gorgeous risks with the art form and inviting viewers to puzzle out his methods and motivations.
“Leaders in Color” by Trueson Daugherty
Build in Tulsa, 124 Reconciliation Way
Opening Friday, 6-9pm
As a painter, a performance artist, and proprietor of The Parlour, Trueson Daugherty pushes Tulsa to keep what’s important in view, to focus our attention and fully take in each other’s visions. In this show at Build in Tulsa's First Friday Founders Market, he’s lifting up Black leaders from history who are still leading the way—including James Baldwin, who could have been describing this work when he said “the intangible dreams of people have a tangible effect in the world.” These are bold, strong, mighty-voiced portraits: stand in front of them and see what you hear.
Tulsa Artist Fellowship Awardee Reception & Open Studios
TAF Archer Studios, 112 N. Boston Ave.
Friday, 6-9pm
Meet your new Tulsa Artist Fellows! Ten innovative mid-career artists are arriving in Tulsa (well, three of them already live here!) to start two-year residencies that are very likely to blow our collective minds. Part of their mission is to engage with the local community—so stop by the awardee reception, and all y’all start to get to know one another.
Open Studio Hours: Black History Month Edition
Edison Studios, 4040 W. Edison St.
Saturday, 12-4pm
If you’ve never been to Edison Studios on the west side, it is absolutely a vibe, and this is a great weekend to check it out. Saturday’s open studio session features Black History Month presentations by historian Chief Amusan, poet Tony B, Black Moon and a sacred drum circle, plus food from Hibachi in the Hood. Edison Studios artists Ojekunle Amusan, Kathy Reynolds Clarke, Ebony Iman Dallas, Hope Egan, Zac Heimdale, Angel Okolie, Lisa Regan, Nomad Mystique, and Afrikanation Gallery will have work on view as well, with many of them present in person to talk about their process and works in progress.
“4Cs: Cultivating, Crafting, Collecting, Community“ by Letitia R. Bajuyo, Cassidy Frye & Christyn Overstake
Positive Space Tulsa, 1324 E. 3rd St.
Opening Saturday, 5-8pm
This gallery specializes in work by womxn artists, and every month here brings deep discoveries. Be ready for art that challenges your perceptions, reaches your mind and heart, and links you to your neighbors in Tulsa and beyond. For its first show of the year, Positive Space brings together three mixed media artists, all transplants to Oklahoma, to explore themes of place, community, and care that we all could use some inspiration in right about now. They'll give an artist talk at 5pm Saturday at the gallery.
