Mirroring Reality

Juried by Andrew Dubach

July 30 - August 23, 2026

Mirroring Reality

Andrew Dubach

Mirroring Reality highlights contemporary realist painters from across the United States, exploring how artists mirror, challenge, and reconstruct reality through representational imagery.

In the 1970s, a new painting style emerged in the avant-garde art scenes of California and New York. Known by several names, including Sharp-Focus Realism and New Realism, the movement ultimately became known as Photorealism. As an antithesis to Abstract Expressionism and Action Painting, Photorealism embraced control, precision, and craft over spontaneity and gesture. Painting from photographs became an act of deliberate rebellion at a time when representational painting was widely considered obsolete.

Hyperrealism later expanded the movement by pushing reality beyond ordinary perception, rendering details sharper and more vivid than the naked eye can naturally perceive.

Today, artists confront new technologies and new realities to interpret. AI-generated imagery can produce convincing images in seconds, while Realist painters spend countless hours mapping, rendering, and refining their work with machine-like precision. In an era when reality itself can be manufactured, Mirroring Reality asks an increasingly urgent question: What is reality, and how do we represent it?

Participating Artists

Jamie Bauer, Michael Ganser, Christopher Ganz, Ali Gemmer, Kenneth Hochberg, Jennifer Holt, John Hrehov, Lisa Lackey, Peter Lupkin, Matthew Mogle, Dawn Inglis Montgomery, Mihee Nahm, Kathleen Nesbitt, Michael Nichols, Yvonne Nowicka-Wright, Kevin Schroeder, Constance Scopelitis, and Chad Wooters.

About the Juror

Andrew Dubach is a multi-media artist with a BFA in Sculpture and a background in art history. Over the past decade, he has worked in galleries, museums, arts nonprofits, and artist collectives while curating exhibitions across a range of venues. His work has been shown throughout the U.S. and Europe, and he has helped secure funding for large-scale public art projects. He currently works full-time as an artist and is a member of Artlink Gallery.