March Barn Door Gallery 2026

I Got U

Ryan Murray and Sharona Color

March 6 - March 27

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Opening Reception on Arts Night Out

I Got U unites artistic collaborators Sharon Leshner and Ryan Murray—two distinct voices, each with their own style and way of moving through the world—who meet in the studio with a shared goal of togetherness.

The exhibition is grounded in a balance of optimism and reality—light and dark held side by side. It’s raw, open, and human—about the mess we all share and the beauty that comes from it. The work doesn't stand at a distance; it pulls you in, asking you to feel, reach out, and connect. The gritty texture of everyday life is expressed materially through torn layers of glued paper, textured paint, and freestyle brushstrokes.

Created in fascist times, I Got U centers common ground as a means of survival. The multimedia artworks include words drawn from intuition—subtle reminders and affirmations for getting through it. Mental health is not an abstract theme here, but a lived practice embedded in making, undoing, and remaking.

With figures moving and dancing, the work embodies togetherness as action rather than idea. In collaboration, in motion, and in care, I Got U offers connection as both resistance and refuge—an insistence that in creating together, we hold one another up.

• Ryan Murray

  Ryan Murray (he/him), spray paint stencil artist and muralist, received his Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University in 2014 and currently resides in western Massachusetts. He is currently represented by Art for the Soul Gallery. Through his work Ryan unearths and examines unsettling but important conversations about the stigma of mental illness, with the goal of normalizing the discussion and treatment of mental health in black communities. To examine Black mental health is to examine the effect of events in both the past and present, socioeconomic factors, how patterns of suffering repeat themselves, and the burden of certain societal expectations.

  Ryan utilizes repeated symbolism and autobiographical elements in order to address the reality and the reasons that people of color suffer in silence more than their white counterparts. Some of these works incorporate elements from photos taken during childhood, while others are derived from collages made during the artist’s therapy sessions.

  IG@rywandojones

  ryanamurray.com

• Sharona Color

  Sharon Leshner (aka Sharona Color, she/her) is an Easthampton, MA based artist and community activator. She uses mesmerizing colors to capture fleeting moments of awe from life. Sharon’s work begins with a process of deep listening, both to herself and her community. She dives into the confluence of our innermost thoughts and the playful nuances of our shared experiences in a way that challenges societal norms and makes way for healing. Sharon’s work draws from the spontaneity and improvisation of abstract expressionism. Like a symphony of poetic phrases and words, curved forms, and bold colors, her work evokes a sense of ever-present movement and a joyful acceptance of change for the viewer. Sharon is the Artistic Director and Founder at the non-profit mural organization, The Color Collaborative. Her murals can be found in cities around the country and internationally. 

  IG@sharona_color

  www.sharonacolor.com

January Barn Door Gallery 2026

Convergence: A Celebration of Community

NCFA’s 2025 Curritotial Committee

January 7 - January 30

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Opening Reception on Arts Night Out

Convergence: A Celebration of Community marks the third annual showcase of talented artists and creative thinkers who formed the Barn Door Gallery Curatorial Committee (2024). Each July, a new collective of creative minds convenes, sparking thoughtful dialogue and shaping a yearlong series of exhibitions hosted by the Northampton Center for the Arts from February through December of the coming year. This curatorial process ensures equitable opportunities for local artists, championing equity, offering a platform for diverse voices, perspectives, and artistic mediums to shine. This fresh collective builds on the solid foundation laid by previous groups, consistently infusing new energy, perspectives, and talent into the Center's commitment to accessibility and inclusion.

In January, we honor this collaborative spirit with a special exhibition spotlighting the work of Curatorial Committee members or artists they have personally selected. Join us in celebrating this year's dynamic convergence of the local arts community, as these creative minds unite to showcase their work and reinforce the spirit of collaboration and support within the local art scene. Don’t miss the chance to experience the vibrant expressions of our community!

• Heather Geoffrey

  Heather Geoffrey (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist whose body of work includes acrylic painting, digital photography, analog collage, mixed media, written word and performance. She experiences creating art as an ongoing dialogue with the worlds that she inhabits and those that inhabit her. She believes that the seen and unseen worlds of the physical, imaginary, emotional, and spiritual are constantly in conversation. It is this ongoing conversation that she finds magical and is the most curious about, interested in, and where her artistic creations rise out of.

  IG@ouroboros_studios

  www.heathergeoffrey.com

• James Lipshaw

  James (he/him) began working with marker portraits while decorating his classroom as a MA public school teacher. These ‘cheap’ materials fade quickly with time in hot fluorescent light, draining both legibility and value from the work. Black lines go green, color washes out, and something that seemed so permanent when you marked it is gone forever.

  IG@jameslipshaw

• Jeannie Donovan

  Jeannie Donovan (she/her) creates intricate watercolors and unique “pulp paintings” that reflect her search for places of quiet beauty and healing. Painting and pulp painting are the processes by which she conveys her vivid memories from dreams and travels to different cultural landscapes, that intersect in the compositions she calls ’semi-abstract realism.’ Her art is a respite from the daily barrage of breaking news, and the endless streaming words and voices on electronic devices.

  Born on an egg and fruit farm in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, Jeannie started drawing and painting at around age four. The apple trees, fields, and barn became her subject matter, inspiring her reverence for nature and unspoiled land. She holds a BA in Studio Art and Art Education from Emmanuel College, and an MFA in Visual Design from UMass Dartmouth. She has taught painting and drawing on the college, high school, and continuing education level for many years, and is a lifetime member of the Artists Association of Nantucket. She’s exhibited her work in Boston, New England, western Massachusetts, and New York, in galleries, museums, and universities.

  jeanniedonovan.com

• Stacey Phillips

  Stacey Phillips (she/they)

  Originally from Central CT and living in Western MA

  Largely a self-educated artist, the intention of her practice is to use art as a divination and spiritual process, as a way of self-discovery and challenging supremacist spaces. 

  She is the creator of Divination of the Undiscovered Self—a unique, always evolving, intuitive system (based upon tarot) used in creating art for personal introspection.

  Currently, their position as a gallery assistant within an art museum, provides a fertile environment for; love and distrust as well as admiration and discomfort. Institutional art spaces contain their own energy, magic and spells. They possess the power to transform. In order to address the hierarchy and oppression felt within these spaces, they have learned to recognize their identity as a diviner within the artist, while centering Blackness within white space. Using the art museum as subject—they divine its ideology through artistic practice in order to comprehend and then often counteract its colonialist tendencies. 

  Working with collage, painting and other media, the work seeks to ask questions concerning the complexities of cultural and racial integration that do not omit the energetic, psychic, social, political, as well as ancestral connotations. The collages attempt to function as interrogations of power, while providing acts of resilience, resistance, and understanding. 

  IG@sphillipsartdivination