On View Now
at Civera Gallery
University Academic Building, 2nd Floor
Walking Together
Curated by Joy Davis, Walking Together brings together three Baltimore-based artists, Shaun Champion, Charles Mason III, and kolpeace, in an exploration of identity, memory and cultural transformation.
Walking By Together: Art and Healing, in the Black Atlantic
Creative Alliance, TENT Rotterdam, Baltimore-Rotterdam Sister City Committee, and Notre Dame University's Art Therapy program present Walking By Together: an exhibition and therapeutic arts initiative that connects Black artists, their diverse experiences, and artwork, across the Atlantic while exploring the healing power of creative expression.
Explore the Black Atlantic through the diverse stories of local artists in the historical port cities of Baltimore and Rotterdam, through exhibitions in both countries, an exchange program, and innovative art therapy collaborations.
Featuring works by Schaun Champion (Baltimore), Charles Mason III (Baltimore), and kolpeace (Baltimore), created in partnership with Notre Dame University's Art Therapy program.
Curated by Joy Davis, Visual Arts Director at Creative Alliance and founder of Waller Gallery, in collaboration with Notre Dame University's Art Therapy faculty and students.
The exhibition and artists exchange Walk On By explores the African diaspora in two historic industrial port cities, Baltimore and Rotterdam, through the many-layered and diverse stories that local artists can tell, while investigating art's capacity for personal and community healing. In collaboration with Creative Alliance (Baltimore), TENT (Rotterdam), and Notre Dame University's Art Therapy program, Baltimore-based curator Joy Davis bridges conversations between different Black diasporic communities and art practices within their expansive mediums. The Walk On By exhibition and cultural exchange is in response to the Dionne Warwick song of the same name that parallels the necessity to commune and communicate with one's community—a principle that aligns deeply with art therapy's focus on connection, expression, and healing.
Exhibiting Artists:
Schaun Champion, Charles Mason III, and kolpeace.
On View: August 25th - October10th, 2025
Reception & Art Walk: Saturday, September 20th, 4-6pm
About the Curator and Featured Artist:
Joy Davis, Curator
Joy Davis is a curator, cultural worker, and director based in
Baltimore, MD. She has conducted relevant work in New
York, Los Angeles, and Baltimore for over 8 years. At the core
of her work, she believes it is foundational to set standards in
the Baltimore area for community relations and celebrate
artistic practices. It is important to her to make artists feel
they have a platform to be themselves and explore their
practices. In 2018, Joy conceived and created Waller Gallery
to support artists in Baltimore and beyond. Through Waller,
Joy built her curatorial experience and fluency in the art
community. For over 7 years at Waller Gallery, her work with
artists of color has been paramount to creating an equitable
gateway for artists to thrive and drive the art world.
In 2021, Joy joined Creative Alliance as the Visual Arts
Director overseeing two gallery spaces and their anchor
resident artist program. Working in two neighborhoods in
Baltimore City, she has a unique opportunity to have a
broader impact on the artist communities she serves.
Artists
Schaun Champion (Baltimore)
Schaun Champion is an artist-photographer, director of photography and instructor specializing in natural light, portraiture, fine art and cultural documentary/archival work. Using both digital and analog cameras, she creates intentionally cinematic and honest imagery. Inspired by classic films, music and all things vintage; her intention is to use themes of nature, diversity and nostalgia to illustrate the drama within the familiar.
Charles Mason III (Baltimore)
Charles Mason III is an abstract painter who asks how blackness can be experienced abstractly through installation and materials. Mason leverages symbolic content—such as the color black, hidden text, and repeated pictorial motifs like flowers and bricks—to create interpretive aesthetic spaces that address grief, mourning, and morbidity. While creating his work, internally he may be responding to specific contemporary events and narratives that relate to his experience moving through the world as a Black person. Meanwhile, his choice to deploy abstraction as an aesthetic strategy creates a space of freedom from such narratives, both for himself as an artist and for the viewers.
kolpeace (Baltimore)
Artist Christopher “kolpeace” Johnson explores his black southern culture & ancestral characters through liberating portraits while rapidly creating & specializing in contemporary art, public art, community art, and performance art. His work is intended to instigate the narrative of taking the art off the gallery walls and to the people by engagement mixing graffiti techniques with contemporary art tools. “kolpeace” (which stands for Kids Only Love Peace) presents a black identified folktale that paints from his influential past/present/future, in hopes to create moments of betterment towards humanity. He uses childhood genres of his black cultural folk life (such as trill, trap, and soul music) to encourage and liberate cultural prejudice.