Artist Statement
Creating cultural change through the arts and social engagement, I am a trans-media artist who has devoted more than two decades to working in and with community-based arts. My practice includes participatory work, along with traditional mediums like painting, sculpture, and mixed media.
The visual works I create address themes such as nature, sex, and environment. Often comic-like and visually graphic, my works frequently incorporate children's stories and appropriated imagery to illustrate adult metaphors. While my participatory practice has confronted stigma, sexuality, disability, and use of public space; the community-based work I produce breaks down the conventional barriers of interaction and understanding between mainstream society and those who have been seen as outsiders. As part of my practice, I find co-collaborators and engage with communities by exploring them through the guidance of insiders.
Whether it’s through assembling a large-scale beaded mural, storytelling through performative verbatim theater, or constructing a community space, I aim to create an arena that allows the building of bridges across communities that would generally not intermingle.
As a trans-media artist and engagement professional, GK has more than two decades of experience working in the community arts field. He has had the opportunity to work with Intersection for the Arts, The San Francisco Arts Education Project, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, LightHouse for the Blind & Visually Impaired, Harvey Milk, Civil Rights Academy, and the University of Missouri.
He earned his MFA in Social Practice at California College of the Arts and his BFA in Painting at the San Francisco Art Institute. He has taught, lectured, consulted, held board positions, and founded several community projects.
In 2010, he received a San Francisco Arts Commission, Arts & Communities: Innovative Partnerships Grant and founded the Please Touch Garden, an outdoor community space that addresses urban agriculture, arts, and disabilities. Due to structural instability of the neighboring building, the garden closed in the summer of 2019.
Callahan is also the co-founder and primary producer for Contracting an Issue, an international social awareness project that explored HIV/AIDS's continuing impact. In 2017 he received an Inspiration Grant from ArtsKC to bring Contracting an Issue to Tanzania. In 2018, he was invited to attend the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art Residency to make work about his travels. In 2019 he showed a decade of his HIV stigma related work at Leedy-Voulkos Gallery Kansas City in a show entitled Mapping Stigma.
Callahan continues to work on the Beaded Quilt project, which started in 2010 at the LightHouse for the Blind in San Francisco. An ongoing community art venture in partnership with the Blind/Def-Blind and Visually impaired community; in 2019, he showcased the KC Beaded Quilt at Weinberger Fine Art and has a forthcoming show in 2022 at the Johnson County Arts & Heritage Center.
Currently working as a Community Arts and County Engagement Specialist for the University of Missouri Extension, promoting and fostering community and economic development through the arts. In 2018, he was awarded the Excellence in Community Resource & Economic Development Award by MACEDEP for a feasibility study on an arts incubator for the City of Gladstone.
CV
EDUCATION
California College of the Arts – MFA, Social Practice (2014)
San Francisco Art Institute, BFA, Interdisciplinary/ Painting (2006)
CONTINUING EDUCATION
Executive Program in Arts and Culture Strategy- National Arts Strategies/University of Pennsylvania (2020)
Creative AGEing Artists Training - Arts & AGEing, KC (2019)
Storytelling for Influence course -IDEO (2018)
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art Residency (2018)
Warm Heart Art Residency, Tanzania, Africa (2017)
Supervisory Certificate Series-Missouri Training Institute (2017)
Community Development Academy/University of Missouri Extension - Empowering Communities for the future (2017)
Community Development Academy/ University of Missouri Extension - Building Communities from the Grassroots (2016)
Playworks, AFA TAC Learning Academy (2010)
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
County Program Director/ Community Arts & Development Specialist
Clay County, University of Missouri Extension (2015 – Present)
Contracting An Issue, Founder/Director
San Francisco, CA | Arusha, Tanzania | Kansas City | Tampa/St Pete’s (2014 – Present)
Please Touch Community Garden, Founder, Co-Director
San Francisco, CA (2010 – Present)
The San Francisco Arts Education Project (SFArtsED), Visual Arts Teacher
San Francisco, CA (2010-2013)
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Community Engagement Internship
San Francisco, CA (2013 - 2014)
AWARDS & GRANTS
Excellence in Community Resource & Economic Development Award—Missouri Association of Community Economic Development Extension Professionals (2018)
Inspiration Grant—Arts-KC (2017)
Arts & Communities: Innovative Partnership Grant—San Francisco Arts Commission (2010)
COMMUNITY ART/ PUBLIC MURALS
Kansas City Beaded Quilt, Weinberger Fine Art (2019)
From the Mountains to the Sea, Glen Park School, SF, CA (2014)
Please Touch Community Garden, SF, CA pleasetouchgarden.org (2010)
Beaded Quilt Mural, LightHouse For the Blind and Visually Impaired (2011)
Welcome to Harvey’s Garden, Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, SF, CA (2010)
Founded on Dreams, Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, SF, CA (2009)
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Mapping Stigma, Leedy-Voulkos Art Center (2019)
GK Callahan, Otis, San Francisco, CA (2007)
Reflections From the Bay, Blue Jay Café, San Francisco, CA (2007)
White, White, Color, Moby Dick, San Francisco, CA (2007)
Life is Beautiful Presented by ARTworkSF @ La Vita e, SF, CA (2007)
Another Spring Show, Catasta Gallery/La Vita e Bella San Francisco, CA (2006)
Over Your Head, Catasta Gallery Public Art, Chestnut St, San Francisco, CA (2005)
Under the Big Top, Melting Point, Catasta Gallery San Francisco, CA (2004)
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Beyond Bounds, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas (2017)
Out Here Now: Film Festival, Contracting An Issue – Kansas City Documentary, Tivoli Cinemas, (2015)
San Francisco Museum of Fine Art- Visual Activism Symposium, SF Brava Theater -The Lobbyists (2014)
MFA- CCA Thesis show (2014)
Tulip Gallery, Chicago IL (2007)
Queerfest Midwest, Pulaski Park Fieldhouse, Chicago, IL (2007)
Breaking Ice, ARTworkSF, 49 Geary St Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2007)
Beyond Fiction, ARTworkSF, 49 Geary St Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2007)
Asylum SFAI Group Show, San Francisco Arts Institute, San Francisco, CA (2003)
Stimulus, Catasta Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2003)
VISITING ARTIST LECTURES
“Can Art Spark Change” – NorthLand Coffee and Connect- Design Werks (2019)
“Fieldwork,Tanzania, African”- The Art Studio of Gloria Heifner, North Kansas City, MO (2018)
“Like the air you breathe: The intrinsic value of the arts”, CDA Explores Arts & Economic Development, Excelsior Springs, MO (2016)
“The Power of arts in Missouri Communities”, MU Extension, Gallatin, MO (2016)
“The Power of arts in Missouri Communities”, MU Extension, Nevada, MO (2016)
“Social Practice- Can one person make a change?”, Metropolitan Community College, KCMO (2015)
“More Then something that Matches your Sofa”, MU Extension, Higginsville, MO (2015)
“There goes the Neighborhood”, Art Produce Gallery SD, CA (2012)
ARTIST RESIDENCIES
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art Residency (2018)
Warm Heart Art Residency, Tanzania, Africa (2017)
The FOR-SITE Foundation- Nevada City, CA (2014)