CALL FOR ENTRIES
Interested in exhibitions or other projects with Monmouth Arts? Check out this page for our current opportunities!
Human Thread: The Art of Compassion and Courage
Location: The Caroline Huber Wellness Center at Brookdale Community College
Deadline: May 1, 2026
Exhibition: June 2 - August 10, 2026
Opening reception: Thursday, June 4 from 4:00pm - 6:00pm
The Caroline Huber Wellness Center at Brookdale Community College in partnership with Monmouth Arts invites artists to submit works for a special exhibition celebrating two of Brookdale’s guiding values: Compassion and Courage. These values shape the College’s poverty-informed practices—removing barriers, leading with love, and acting boldly to open doors for all learners. We seek artwork that reflects the emotional, social, and human dimensions of these commitments.
​​Art has long served as one of humanity's most powerful tools for social transformation. Where policy stalls and words fall short, a painting, a photograph, or a mural can crack open empathy in ways that little else can. Artists like Käthe Kollwitz, whose unflinching depictions of poverty and grief gave face to the voiceless, understood that to render suffering with honesty and tenderness is to refuse its invisibility — and in that refusal, to invite others into connection rather than turning away. It is this same impulse that drives artists working today to document resilience, bear witness to hardship, and find in the human face evidence of endurance, hope, and the stubborn will to carry on.
We invite you to bring that spirit to this exhibition — to submit work that holds the full weight of compassion and courage, and that trusts the capacity of the arts to remind us we are never as alone as struggle might make us feel. To make art about compassion and courage is not a gentle act. It is an insistence that human dignity cannot be negotiated away, and that solidarity, practiced boldly and tenderly, is itself a form of resistance.
Selected works will be featured in the curated exhibition in the Wellness Center providing a platform for artists to showcase their interpretations of the theme.
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Open to all Brookdale Community College students, faculty, and staff as well as members of Monmouth Arts.
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There is no submission fee for eligible artists. Artists who would like to become new members and submit may use the discount code THREAD to receive $10 off the $40 artist membership rate. Student memberships are free. For more information and an online membership form, please go to www.monmoutharts.org/join-us.
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Established, emerging, and student artists who are 16 and over are encouraged to submit works to this opportunity.
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Artists will receive 100% of sales.
For assistance, accessibility requests, or questions about submitting please contact Connie Isbell, Membership & Community Engagement Director, at connie@monmoutharts.org; 732.212.1890 ext 101.
ArtSpace 2027
Location: 99 Monmouth St, Red Bank, NJ
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Each year, Monmouth Arts invites its members to propose an exhibition in our event space and gallery at 99 Monmouth Street in Red Bank. More information on applications for solo and small group exhibitions for 2027 will be coming soon.
Monmouth Arts invites the creative community of Monmouth County to submit works that explore the theme of Seen & Unseen as part of our annual member exhibition, to be held at Monmouth University’s Pollak Gallery, November 1 - December 11, 2025, with an opening reception on November 7th.
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Seen & Unseen is a call for artists to look more closely—not only at our surroundings but also at the inner landscapes we carry. It’s an invitation to recognize the presence and power of what is often left in the shadows.
In shedding light on what has been obscured—by history, by progress, or by the limits of perception—Seen & Unseen seeks to reclaim and reframe the narratives that shape Monmouth County’s cultural and emotional landscape. Through painting, sculpture, photography, video, and mixed media, we ask artists to consider: What do we overlook in our daily lives? What deserves to be remembered? And how do the spaces we inhabit mirror the spaces within us?
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The 2025 Charles Sills Memorial Group Art Exhibit: Seen & Unseen
Artists may draw from archival material, oral histories, urban exploration, memories, and introspection to uncover the stories embedded in places and people. Some may examine sites long erased from public consciousness—historic homes, shuttered institutions, or neighborhoods transformed by time. Others may choose to navigate the intangible: the private worlds of resilience, grief, spirituality, or psychological space.
This multidisciplinary exhibition will showcase the artists of Monmouth Arts whose works illuminate the forgotten, the hidden, and the quietly profound. From abandoned buildings and neglected corners of the landscape to the emotional terrain of personal memory and spiritual experience, we look forward to an exhibit that reveals the richness that often goes unnoticed.
Seen & Unseen will be guest curated by Vaune Peck, Director of Monmouth University’s Center for the Arts. Pollak Gallery is located in West Long Branch in the heart of Monmouth University’s beautiful campus, adjacent to Pollak Theatre. The gallery features regional artists and collaborates with community organizations on special exhibitions. It has also hosted special exhibits from private collectors and exhibitions curated by the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles.
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The Monmouth Arts annual member exhibit – now in its eighth year – is named for Dr. Charles Sills, who was a painter, sculptor, collector, and supporter of the arts. He retired from his role as the Chief of Surgery at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch in 2000. His work has been shown at many galleries in Monmouth County and he won awards from New York's Allied Artists of America as well as Knickerbocker Artists.
Those artists interested in submitting to Seen & Unseen must be current members of Monmouth Arts and agree to the exhibition guidelines. Artists who would like to become new members and submit may use the code SEEN to receive $10 off the $40 artist membership rate.
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Please contact Connie Isbell, Director of Membership & Community Engagement, with any questions at connie@monmoutharts.org or 732.212.1890 ext 101.
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Deadline: September 30, 2025