Dr. M. T. Geoffrey Yeh Art Gallery

Olney Marie Ryland: Urbane Facades

September 18 - December 7, 2025

The first solo exhibition of Addisleigh Park, Queens-based artist Olney Marie Ryland, Urbane Facades features the largest collection of her constructed wooden building facades to date. For over thirty years, Ryland has meticulously crafted these models, inspired by buildings from various New York City neighborhoods, chosen for their historical significance or simply for their elegant design—evoking a sense of civic pride through architecture. Notable works in the exhibition include renditions of houses from the Weeksville Heritage site in Brooklyn, one of the first free black communities in the U.S. in the 19th Century, and San Juan Hill, the former neighborhood that is now home to Lincoln Center. Ryland’s work is deeply connected to her personal history in Addisleigh Park, a section of St. Albans, Queens with a rich tradition of black prosperity and homeownership. Ryland herself has been instrumental in preserving the unique character of Addisleigh Park, having served as President and now Vice-President of the Addisleigh Park Civic Organization. As President, she initiated the process to get the neighborhood registered as a Historic District with the Historic Districts Council. Ryland’s exhibition is a continuation of this dedication, offering a distinct perspective on architecture, history, and the enduring spirit of community.

Kunsang Gyasto: A speck swallows the sun

September 18 - December 7, 2025

A speck swallows the sun, the first solo exhibition of Jackson Heights, Queens-based artist Kunsang Gyatso, brings together a selection of paintings and sculptures that integrate motifs from Tibetan Buddhist spiritual traditions, particularly the forms of the "torma," cone-shaped ceremonial objects often made of butter and barley flour. His abstract paintings, along with sculptures made from cement, grains of rice, and needles, borrow from these ritual objects to explore themes of animism, migration, loss, inherited sensibilities to form, and the potential for abstraction to hold memory or induce change. The exhibition’s enigmatic title, A speck swallows the sun, is drawn from a poem by the 15th-century Indian mystic poet Kabir and captures a sense of both personal and collective anxieties. This phrase reflects a seemingly impossible inversion of power and scale, where something as small as a grain of rice overwhelms the vastness of the sun—suggesting a space where fragility becomes potent and meaning emerges from paradox.

Fernando Zelaya '20BFA: Final Days!

September 18 - December 7, 2025

Final Days!, the first solo exhibition of Bronx-based artist Fernando Zelaya (SJU BFA Photography ’20), focuses on the interplay between photography and writing, presenting a series of black and white photographs interspersed with fragments of text that all together address transience, loss, and formlessness. Zelaya’s images capture fleeting moments such as the glowing light bleeding through window blinds or a faint image of a friend on a sun-drenched beach—each photograph carrying just barely enough information to render the details discernible. The accompanying text probes the limits of language and remains in constant dialogue with the photographs, as he states, “I find myself fixated on the spelling of certain words but now realize there isn’t much that separates them and images,” and “I’ve run out of words and have forgotten each of their meanings.”

Ada Zejun Shen: Symbiosis as Post-Anthropocene Metaphors

September 18 - December 7, 2025 

Installed in the gallery’s corridor vitrines, Symbiosis as Post-Anthropocene Metaphors is the first solo exhibition by illustrator Ada Zejun Shen in New York. Shen’s project takes a critical stance against the human-centrism of the Anthropocene and the notion of technofixing—the belief that technology alone can resolve environmental and human challenges while disregarding the complexity of reality. Inspired by Donna Haraway’s book Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, the exhibition advocates for non-anthropocentric perspectives, emphasizing symbiosis to illustrate the entangled, chaotic, and interconnected nature of all lifeforms. Shen’s illustrations function as both an illustrated essay and a self-initiated editorial practice, developed directly from scientific articles and publications. Through this research, Shen encountered examples such as how human vision developed from bacterial gene transfer and how the placenta evolved from a viral infection. Using these prompts, her illustrations invite viewers to contemplate humanity’s place in the world—encouraging both reflection and a profound sense of connection.

Dr. M. T. Geoffrey Yeh Art Gallery

Sun Yat Sen Hall
8000 Utopia Parkway
Queens, NY 11439
718-990-7476

Gallery Directions

Tuesday - Friday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Saturdays 12 p.m. - 5 p.m., and by appointment.

Parking

Guests coming to campus can obtain a visitor parking pass at the Gate 1 entrance. This pass allows you to park in select parking areas on campus. Gate 1 is located at the intersection of Kildare Road and Utopia Parkway.

Public Transportation

The Art Gallery is accessible via public transit by subway at the F train (169th Street) or E train (Kew Gardens-Union Turnpike) stops. It is also accessible via the Q30, Q31, and Q46 MTA buses. 

Accessibility

The Yeh Art Gallery has a wheelchair-accessible entrance in the back of the building. Please contact us with questions about accessible parking locations or any other requests at [email protected]. 

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