Caleb Dowdell & TaVee McAllister Lee: Future Vision @ Gearbox Gallery

Future Vision brings together the work of Caleb Dowdell and TaVee McAllister Lee, two artists looking at the forces that shape the world we imagine and the world we create.

Caleb Dowdell’s Our Prism of Dreams is a kinetic, five-sided plexiglass prism featuring hand-painted portraits of people whose lives have expanded what others might believe possible appear together as examples of persistence, courage, and possibility. Painted with layers of translucent acrylic, the portraits shift and overlap as the prism moves, suggesting that one person’s accomplishments can become another person’s starting point.

The transparent panels also introduce another idea: being seen. The figures emerge and disappear as the viewer moves around the work, while the sculpture itself turns freely with the air. Dowdell extends this sense of movement through live musical performances, adding another layer of response to the people and stories represented.

TaVee McAllister Lee approaches the future from a different direction. Her floating paper collages are assembled from torn magazine images and fragments of text, bringing together scenes of desire, consumption, achievement, violence, environmental damage, displacement, and everyday life. Images that once belonged to advertising and mass media are removed from their original contexts and placed into new, often uneasy relationships.

Together, the works ask us to consider what we carry forward. Lee examines the competing interests and consequences of our collective and individual choices. Dowdell points to inspiration in individuals who light the way toward who we can be and what we can do. Future Vision does not offer a single picture of what lies ahead, instead, it places hope, aspiration, responsibility, and uncertainty alongside one another—and leaves room for us to consider what kind of future we are helping to make.