RISE: From Adversity to Light

RISE aims to create a powerful and uplifting dialogue around what it means not only to endure—but to create, evolve, and rise.

Opening this summer, RISE: From Adversity to Light is a juried group exhibition exploring the profound human capacity to transform challenge into meaning, adversity into momentum, and personal struggle into renewed clarity, connection, and creative force.

Bringing together a diverse range of contemporary visual artists, the show reflects on resilience not as survival alone, but as an active and evolving process of becoming.

Through painting, mixed media, sculpture, photography, and contemporary practices, the selected works illuminate the ways individuals move through uncertainty toward strength, beauty, and hope.

Rather than centering hardship as a final destination, RISE approaches adversity as a catalyst—a turning point where reflection deepens into insight, and where creative expression emerges as both response and renewal.

Grounded in the realities of contemporary life while reaching toward a more universal human experience, the exhibition invites audiences to consider themes of identity, memory, endurance, healing, and transformation through a wider lens of shared humanity and possibility.

“This is not a show about despair,” says Mariana de la Vega. “It is about what becomes possible afterward - the beauty that can be shaped from challenge and the enduring power of hope.”

The works create a resonant and uplifting field of connection, one that reminds us of our shared ability not only to endure, but to create, evolve, and rise.

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Exhibition Dates: June 6 - July 11, 2026

Opening Reception: June 6 | 5–7 PM

Closing Reception: July 11 | 5–7 PM

Location: De La Vega Art Gallery | 1918 E. Prince Rd., Tucson, AZ

Gallery Hours: Thur-Sat | 10am-3pm

For more information, follow @marianadelavegaart and De La Vega Art Gallery on Instagram for updates on exhibitions and programming.

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Host or Publisher Mariana de la Vega Art Gallery and Studio