Disabled Women Make History (and Art) 2026 Virtual Artists Gallery

Click on the picture of the artwork to learn more about the artist and their piece in their own words.

Join us for a celebration of our virtual artists and virtual gallery walk on July 29th on Zoom.

The art piece is a texture piece of frida khalo in a jungle. I used felt (wool) and stabbed it with a needle into canvas. I used bold colors for the design. I used a deep red color for her top and different shades of greens for the leaves. I combined animals to make a albrijes (Mexican spirit animals). I used a monkey for the head of one of the animals and a penguin for its body. For the other animal I mixed together a panther for the head and a snow leopard for its body.

Frida in felt by Kelsey Haase

Austin, Texas.
I took clay ceramics in high school and fell in love, expanding my learning into college. A block of wet clay allows me to be free and experiment. Many times, the clay leads me in directions I never thought about. I also like the physicalness it requires to make beautiful things. I use every part of my body, so it becomes a therapeutic workout. Clay is very forgiving. If you make a mistake, it is typically easy to fix. I also like to experiment with glazes in different colors and textures. It is always a mystery when it comes out of the kiln.
I have been inspired by the works of Frida Kahlo, and Latin American art in general. Much of Latin art has a spiritual basis. For example, the alibrijes that I make are spirit animals in Mexican culture. It is fun to think of taking the parts of different animals and blending them into one being. Also, they aren’t very common, so it’s always entertaining to watch people try to guess what animal parts I used. I also love the use of bright color and unusual textures. Some of my turquoise work is similar to Aztec art, and many of my bowls use designs based in Aztec and Mayan cultures.
Clay can be intimidating to some people, but many who try it enjoy the feel and like to beat it to submission. There is no limit to its creativity, and I’d like to teach others how to explore their ideas through the medium.

A square mixed media portrait shows the face and shoulders of a woman emerging from a dark textured background. Her face is divided by intricate black lines into irregular shapes resembling stained glass, veins, or fractured stone. Warm gold and peach tones cover the left side of the face, while pale white and gray tones dominate the right. Thin silver wires curve outward and across the surface, creating depth and shadow. The woman faces forward with a calm, direct expression, surrounded by a quiet atmosphere of tension, solitude, and stillness.

BOUNDARIES by Nichole Montgomery

Tulsa, Oklahoma
BOUNDARIES explores solitude as a place of clarity and self possession. Created through her NeuroLines mark making process, the layered surface carries memory, endurance, and private transformation across the figure. Surrounded by darkness and restrained light, the work reflects identity formed beyond expectation, approval, or social demand.

More: nicholemontgomery.com

An artist stands on a sunlit city sidewalk in front of a bookstore, holding a large, yellow poster designed to mimic a popular instructional book cover. The poster is titled "Understanding Deafness for Dummies" by Syra, featuring the iconic black-and-yellow branding and a cartoon character. Text on the poster reads, "Not everyone wants to be fixed," and "A reference for the rest of us!" The artist wears a structured black blazer adorned with small white heart patterns and colorful heels, posing with a serious expression to emphasize the piece's message of social advocacy.

Understanding Deafness for Dummies by Syra

Toronto, Ontario
This piece, part of a series of "protest art," uses the familiar visual language of instructional manuals to confront systemic misconceptions surrounding disability. By subverting a recognizable pop-culture format, the work challenges the medical model of deafness and advocates for a shift toward societal accessibility and genuine understanding. It serves as both a critique of institutional barriers and a call for a more inclusive, caring world.

Painting of two tuxedo (ie black and white) cats. The one on the left is lying down and turning her head around to the camera, with her big yellow eyes in a funny stunned expression. The cat on the right is sitting and has a more relaxed look to her face and green eyes.

Piper and Nori by Lauren Bendik

Los Angeles, California
I’m a pet-sitter and these are a couple of my cat clients, Piper and Nori. I painted them digitally on my ipad using Procreate, spending over 13 hours and 45,000 ‘brush’ strokes. Besides my physical disability, Spina Bifida, I deal with mental health issues like anxiety and derealization. Spending time with animals is therapeutic for me, and it is fulfilling to make art as a tribute to them.

In a orange burgandy, surreal desert, a room with only 2 walls and a window, is cracking from the bomb erupting outside the window with a mushroom cloud. two paper airplanes circle overhead as a woman sits in a wheelchair with a clock for a wheel and paints a picture of 3 swirling peace lilies at an easel. the trees around her are cut short and the one in the corner closest to the viewer has been turned into a birthday cake. a river runs from the crack in the wall under the wheelchair and out into the desert where it twists and turns and cracks.

How Can I Paint Peace Lillies, When There's War? By: Sky Dai

This self portrait is inspired by the surrealist art movement, war and genocide at the hands of the US government, and the ongoing threat of climate change. In a dream, I was shown a future of extreme desertification. With the state of the world, when I go into my studio I sometimes feel stuck unsure of how to focus on painting when there's so much unjust violence and destruction going on around me.

Dividing Without Consent by Swetlana Nikitenko

Berlin, Germany
|This work translates microscopic cell division into a soft, tactile form, contrasting scientific detachment with care and time. The piece reflects on questions of bodily autonomy, visibility, and control. It asks what it means when a body continues to exist beyond personal agency. In the context of disability, the work connects to experiences of medical systems where bodies are often examined, defined, or overlooked without full understanding or consent.

Video description: A textile artwork made from crochet in soft pastel pink and bright red yarn. In the center are two connected red organic forms resembling dividing cells or internal body structures. Red branching lines extend outward across a pale pink background, suggesting blood vessels, nerves, or cellular growth. The handmade texture is highly visible, creating a contrast between soft craft materials and themes of biology, medical research, and bodily transformation.

See more of Swetlana's work on instagram at @stricktdagegen

The image is a painting of a child with a joyful expression, standing inside a room. The child is wearing oversized white sneakers, grey pants with large red stars, and a large black jacket. The child’s head is tilted back with mouth open as if laughing or shouting. The background features a bright blue wall and a brown window frame. On the wall, there's a small piece of paper with a drawing and the words “KIDZ RULEZ” in childlike handwriting. The painting employs bold colors and textured surfaces, with swirling patterns visible on the jacket and the background wall.

In Someone Else's Shoes by DaNice D Marshall

Braintree, Massachusetts
In 2016, a severe illness left me with lung damage, hearing loss and unable to walk without a cane. I started painting, mostly to watch the paint dry and eventually my paintings evolved to Narrative Art. I wanted to show the connectedness of people, those with disability and those without, in the form of empathy.

I hope my art makes you smile a little bit, at least on the inside.

A picture of an art installation of a black metal grid with white balloons tied to it with 250 metal spoons tangled together, hanging on fishing line from the grid. An LED light rope is looping down throughout the balloons and tangles of spoons.

The Weight of Spoons by Alexis Neumann

Long Beach, California
“The Weight of Spoons” is an installation using 250+ found metal spoons, fishing line, LED neon rope, metal grid, and balloons to visualize the compounding, overwhelming, ‘invisible’ tolls that are faced by people living with disabilities that accompany tasks of daily living, inspired by “Spoon Theory.” “Spoon Theory” is a metaphor, well-known and loved throughout the disability, chronic illness, and mental health communities, which uses “spoons” to represent living with limited and fluctuating daily energy levels.