Summer Art
July 30 – Sept 3, 2026
Opening Reception:
Thurs, July 30th from 6-8pm
Works by Summer Camp Students, Adult Students, members, and Faculty
This exhibition will feature work by Summer Art Camp students, Art and Music Camp for Special Needs students, adult students, members and faculty of Aiken Center for the Arts. We hope to honor their work as an effective path to learning and knowledge for all in addition to showcasing the broad range of talent found among us.
Open to 2025-26 students, members and faculty of Aiken Center for the Arts.
Art drop off: July 6-10 from 10am-4pm.
Deadline for entries is July 10th. Application & rules are on our website aikencenterforthearts.org under the exhibition dropdown or by clicking here
Everything I Have
Sept 10 – Oct 15, 2026
Opening Reception:
Thurs, Sept 10th from 6-8pm
Artist Joseph Kameen
Joseph Kameen is an artist and educator living in Aiken, South Carolina. He is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of South Carolina Aiken, teaching drawing, painting, and digital art. Joseph received his BFA in painting and sculpture from Boston University, and his MFA in painting from Indiana University Bloomington. Kameen has exhibited his work nationally and internationally at venues such as Manifest Gallery (Cincinnati, OH), The Painting Center (NYC, NY), Donopoulos IFA (Thessaloniki, Greece), and Torstraße 111 (Berlin, Germany). Kameen’s work has also been featured in a variety of publications, including PIKCHUR Magazine, Emboss Magazine, and Friend of the Artist.
Joseph Kameen has also been selected to create a mural for The Alley, downtown Aiken. The mural’s unveiling will be September 10, 2026 at 5:30pm in The Alley; directly following the unveiling will be our opening reception.
Join us October 1, at 5:30pm in the Main Gallery for an Artist Talk with Joseph Kameen.
Hear from Joeseph Kameen about the inspiration behind the works in his exhibition “Everything I Have” as well as the new mural celebrating Aiken’s Cultural District Designation.
Long May It wave
Oct 22 – Nov 30, 2026
Opening Reception:
Thurs, Oct 22nd from 6-8pm
Dr. Michael Fowler
“Long May it Wave: Lincolnian perspectives on Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence”
“All honor to Jefferson,” Lincoln wrote to a colleague, “to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men in all times, and so embalm it there, that today, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling block to the very harbingers to the reappearing tyranny and oppression.”
This exhibition, held during our country’s 250th anniversary, is intended to showcase, through art and artifacts, evidence—both verbal and visual—of the Great Emancipator’s homage to Thomas Jefferson and his Declaration of Independence. During the years before and during his presidency he continued to appeal to the Declaration and the equality clause as a gauge of what was transpiring, and what was at stake for America. At Gettysburg he took the final step in declaring the meaning of the war and of the national purpose that was embodied in the Declaration’s equality clause: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…”
{CALL FOR ART}
Main Gallery | “Long May it Wave: Local artist perspectives on our American flag”
Local artists share their Patriotic Artistry with original American flag-inspired creations
Aiken Center for the Arts invites our community members to share what the American flag means to you. The exhibition celebrates one of America’s most recognized symbols through art. Join us as honor the history, symbolism, and unity represented by our nation’s flag. Possible ideas of exploration include patriotism, freedom, liberty, identity, democracy, protest, hope and belonging.
Submission guidelines and contract can be found HERE
Submission Deadline:
All artwork should be brought to Aiken Center for the Arts between October 5-9, 2026.