The Julia C. Butridge Gallery is located in the heart of the arts district adjacent to the Long Center and Butler Park at the Dougherty Arts Center, a multi-cultural community arts center providing opportunities for creative expression to citizens for over 41 years. Visitors enjoy an exceptional 2,000 square feet of exhibit space in the main gallery, and an additional 480 square feet in newly renovated gallery space. The natural collision of creative activity at the arts center contributes to the gallery’s longstanding reputation among the arts community as an accessible and nurturing venue and incubator, ideal for emerging and established artists. The gallery is free and open to the public.
The Julia C. Butridge (JCB) Gallery at the Dougherty Arts Center is accepting Exhibit Proposals for the 2027 Gallery Season.
Applications may be submitted November 8, 2025 – March 8, 2026, at 11:59 pm. The JCB Gallery celebrates a wide array of artists with diverse practices and strives to promote the livelihood of Austin’s vital art culture by offering as many opportunities as possible to both emerging and established artists. The submission process includes an artist statement, exhibit proposal, and images. There is no fee to submit an exhibit proposal, and all related exhibits and events are free and open to the public.
To submit please visit: doughertyartscenter.submittable.com/submit.
Upcoming Exhibits
Aileen Chen, If We Make It Bloom, installation of upcycled materials
Metamorphosis: The Alchemy of Waste
Aileen Chen
March 7 – May 9, 2026
Artist Reception: Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 7-9pm
Artist Talk: Wednesday, April 8, 2026, 7-9pm
“Metamorphosis” is a collection of works by artist Aileen Chen that explores the beauty and possibilities in giving new life to "waste." Reclaimed fabrics are sculpted into vibrant blooms. Unwanted objects transform into striking compositions. Chen’s work reminds us of our collective responsibility to preserve our planet, and our own ability to undergo renewals and contribute to a more resilient, harmonious world.
Instagram: @nowasteinnature
Sara Hannon, We’ve been taught to listen, acrylic on canvas, 2023
Connective Tissue
Sara Kate Hannon
March 7 – May 9, 2026
Artist Reception: Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 7-9pm
Artist Talk: Wednesday, April 8, 2026, 7-9pm
Connective Tissue is an exhibition that explores the unseen threads that bind us to one another and to ourselves. Through layered paintings and drawings, this body of work examines themes of identity, relationships, and the emotional landscapes we navigate daily. The abstracted forms—fragmented faces, reaching hands, and overlapping bodies—become metaphors for the complex and often fragile connections that hold us together. The show invites viewers to reflect on these invisible bonds, offering a moment of introspection into how we connect, disconnect, and seek understanding.
Website: www.sarakatehannon.com
Instagram: @sally_juniper
Rakhee Jain Desai, Coming Together, Handmade inks from Marigold, Sappanwood, Lac, Pomegranate, Cutch & Madder, 2025
Build Me A Garden: From Soil to Surface Labor, Lineage, and Living Materials
Rakhee Jain Desai
March 7 – April 18, 2026
Artist Reception: Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 7-9pm
Artist Talk: Wednesday, April 8, 2026, 7-9pm
Build Me A Garden: From Soil to Surface explores how relationships with land are developed and reimagined through labor, lineage and living materials. The exhibition uses craft techniques, abstraction, materiality, and sculptural gestures to give form to the intangible: memory, longing, belonging, and the emotional relationship between land and culture.
Drawing from her lineage in Rajasthan, India, Rakhee Jain Desai brings heritage textile knowledge, natural dyeing, mordants, resist techniques, and ecological processes into conversation with a land that did not birth these traditions but now holds its people. Through the acts of growing dyes in Texas soil, harvesting plant matter, and working with natural materials, Rakhee explores what it means to carry cultural knowledge across geographies and to plant it in new ground, building a garden of evolving culture and craft practices where color emerges from the chemistry of natural materials, soil, water, and time.
Website: www.rakheejaindesai.com
Instagram: @rakheejaindesai