Opening: Magenta Lounge presents 'Queer Today - Love, Power, Freedom!'

Amos Eno Gallery, a non-profit, artist-run space, is thrilled to present , a dynamic group exhibition by the queer art collective Magenta Lounge, curated by its founder James Horner.

Featuring the work of 12 artists, the exhibition will be on view from January 8 to February 8, 2026, with an opening reception on Friday, January 9, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the gallery’s Lower East Side location at 191 Henry St., New York. Works and installation images will also be available on Artsy.

Public programs include a Conscious Collage workshop with Tracy von Ahsen on Sunday, January 11, from 12–2 p.m., and a group artist talk on January 29 from 6–8 p.m.

Across the United States, queer communities — especially LGBTQ+ youth and transgender individuals — continue to navigate disproportionate mental health challenges, heightened discrimination in housing, employment, and healthcare, and reduced access to affirming care. Recent national studies indicate that more than 70% of LGBTQ+ youth report symptoms of anxiety, and nearly 40% of transgender adults have considered suicide.* These inequities, fueled by stigma and systemic exclusion, underscore the urgent need for spaces where queer expression, solidarity, and joy are not only visible but truly celebrated.

Queer Today – Love, Power, Freedom! responds to this moment with both defiance and delight. The exhibition channels opinions, sexuality, resilience, icons, stereotypes, tenderness, humor, and defiance — amplifying the lived realities of LGBTQ+ artists. Spanning identities and generations — gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender; young and old; from Boulder, Colorado, to Brooklyn, New York — this diverse group offers vivid snapshots of their worlds, illuminating both the struggles they endure and the love they cultivate.

Their work reflects not only the challenges their communities face, but the love, power, and freedom they actively generate.

* National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health, 2021.
Artists and Works
James Falciano – Let’s Cancel Our Plans and Spend the Day in Bed: A gouache painting centered on exploring and celebrating queer identity, sexuality, expression and the power in seemingly mundane, everyday moments. Judy Giera – Pink Peep Show with Lilac Finger Incursion (but maybe it feels good, idk?): A multi-media wall sculpture offering humor and a joyful abjection to embody the horror/resiliency it takes to move through the world as a woman, queer, and trans person. judygiera.com/page/1-About.html
James Horner – Wall of Icons: An installation of pottery, paintings, and found objects that celebrate LGBTQ+ heroes that have fought for equal rights or been role-models for the community. Horner is a queer chronicler who educates the public and diverts discrimination from his tribe.     
J. Morrison – I Love Social Networking: This digital c-print is a prime example of his HOMOCATS' works that connect the modern popularity of the feline with social politics to fight phobias, propose equal rights, combat cultural stereotypes, and question social norms.Dustin Oriente – 599: A diptych photograph of a neighborhood deer. Oriente’s portraits highlight his experiences being a queer and transgender man. artsy.net/artist/dustin-oriente
Nelson Santos – The Hardcore Cuddle Club: Launched on February 14, 2025, the initiative is a response to the political and social state we are living in where we desire comfort, connection, and love. We need cuddles. hardcorecuddleclub.com 
Christopher Squier – Triple Rainbow (Redacted): The graphite on rag paper explores optics and the role of light in contemporary visual culture, engaging with research around luminescence, transparency, and invisibility to position vision as a historically-altered and politically-contentious experience. squier.co
Nathan Storey – Stain 01 and Stain 02: These oil monotypes with found photographs explore RFD – a country journal for gay men. Storey traces the relationship between printed matter and queer memory, liberation, and loss. George Towne – Poconos Rainbow Mountain Cabins: This oil painting honors one of the artist’s favorite vacation spots. And Orange Shirt on Plaid Comforter explores a model that he uses frequently for his works. The two oil paintings focus on the gay male experience through portraits and figures, as well as the beauty of urban and rural landscapes connected to the gay community. Tracy von Ahsen – Inner Battle: An analog collage capturing the quiet war between the self you’re told to present and the one fighting to break through the performance. Von Ahsen’s analog collages feel like interior landscapes where memory, intuition, and desire are trying to shape a new version of the figure inside them. tracyvonahsen.com
Aaron Wilder – Delivered Under the Similitude of a Dream: I hope you show the tree-hugging democrats what it means to be strong and true, true to the one who made you: In this inkjet print of digital mixed media, Wilder juxtaposes John Bunyan's 1678 book, Pilgrim's Progress, on his life and feelings of nostalgia for a lost childhood. Michael Young – Hard Day at Work, September: Part of Hidden Glances, a series using layered collages made from vintage gay pornographic calendars to explore absence and presence. By splicing and re-photographing figures from calendars that predate his coming-out, Young creates negative spaces that mirror the covert ways he learned to see as a closeted youth. The altered images meditate on identity, concealment, and visibility, showing how queer histories emerge through fragments and omissions. mjyoungphoto.com
A limited-edition zine accompanies the show, with additional benefit prints supporting the Amos Eno Gallery fundraising efforts. 
About Magenta Lounge and the Curator
Magenta Lounge is a queer art collective started by artist James Horner. The collective’s founding members — Noah Cribb, James Horner, Dustin Oriente, Nathan Storey, and George Towne — launched Magenta Lounge with a commitment to visibility, collaboration, and queer-led creative production.
The group’s first exhibition took place in February 2025 as a public art intervention, transforming the windows of an abandoned building in Chicago into a site for queer expression. In addition to exhibitions and special projects, Magenta Lounge produces zines and posters, extending their practice beyond gallery walls and into accessible, community-oriented formats.

James Horner is a visual storyteller whose figurative works draw from queer culture, environmental psychology, and the emotional dynamics of social spaces. Horner’s characters inhabit worlds that are humorous, muscular, intimate, and destabilizing. His work has been exhibited at The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art and The Bronx Museum, and he is a current participant in the Bronx River Art Center studio program. For more information, visit jameshornerart.com or on Instagram @jamesandthelovelies. 

About Amos Eno Gallery

Amos Eno Gallery has been a fixture in the New York art scene since 1974 when it opened in Soho. The gallery is open Thursdays through Sundays from noon to 6 p.m. and is run by a small community of professional artists, both from New York City and across the country, and a part-time director. ​

The gallery is located at 191 Henry Street between Jefferson and Clinton Streets on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It’s a 5 minute walk from the F Train’s East Broadway Station and a 10 minute walk from the J Train’s Delancey Street - Essex Street Station.

For more information, please contact Gallery Director Ellen Sturm Niz at [email protected].

Tracy von Ahsen, Inner Battle, 2024. Collage, 8 7/8 x 10 3/8 inches.

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