LAST UPDATED: September 8, 2024
Daydreamers and Other Nightmares
Reimagining Myths and Legends for a Collective Future
curated by Brad Silk
July 11, 2025 – August 27, 2025
Greenville Center for Creative Arts, Community Gallery, Greenville, SC
Open Call
Daydreamers and Other Nightmares invites local artists of Upstate South Carolina to submit works that explore the connection between mythology, nostalgia, and contemporary identity. We are looking for artists who are reimagining and referencing masterworks, art history, and mythologies. This exhibition will focus on how myths and legends are reinterpreted through a modern lens, offering new perspectives and visions of a collective future. Participating artists will explore how millennial and contemporary creators use collective stories to reflect and reinterpret the challenges of our time, from political unrest to climate change and global crises. This is not simply a nostalgic gaze into the past, but an intentional use of myth and nostalgia to process trauma and imagine a hopeful future.
This is a rolling open call, submissions are open and may be reviewed throughout the open period.
Deadline to Apply: January 1, 2025
Submit to: daydreamersandothernightmares@gmail.com
Eligibility and Submission Criteria:
Eligibility: Artists 18 years or older and reside in Greenville, South Carolina, or the surrounding Upstate areas.
Mediums: Open to all mediums and styles; however, the Community Gallery cannot accommodate large-form sculptures or installations. Wall-mounted and small 3D work will be given preference
Size Restrictions: no larger than 48 x 48 in
Delivery: Artwork must be hand-delivered and picked up; shipped work will not be accepted.
Original Work: Only original work created by the submitting artist is eligible. Accepted pieces must be the exact work submitted in the images, with no substitutions. The curator reserves the right to pull any work that differs from the accepted submission.
Work Sample Requirements:
Maximum of 5 images per submission.
Format: JPEG, labeled as Last Name_Work Title.jpg
Image Dimensions: At least 1200 pixels on the longest side
Resolution: 72 ppi/dpi
Size: No larger than 5 MB per file
CV/Bio: Please submit a list of works submitted along with current CV and Bio
A brief (under 500 words) statement about the work submitted and how it fits into the exhibition theme. This exhibition seeks to amplify the creative voices of artists who are inspired by mythology, art history, and the complex narratives that shape our identities. We encourage submissions that twist, subvert, and reimagine traditional stories to create artwork that speaks to our collective future.
Important notes and dates:
The Lender agrees that GCCA is entitled to a (30%) commission on all works sold from the exhibition.
The Lender agrees to hand-deliver the items in the inventory list to GCCA at 101 Abney Street, Greenville, South Carolina 29611, no later than July 8, 2025.
An exhibition agreement along with an updated CV will need to be signed and submitted by February 1, 2025, to participate in the exhibition.
Show Thesis
Myths and legends have always inspired artists, offering a rich tapestry of symbols and stories that reflect our deepest fears and hopes. Artists of the Renaissance looked back to classical antiquity for inspiration, studying ancient Greek and Roman art, mythology, and philosophy. Renaissance artists incorporated classical motifs and themes into their paintings and sculptures. Neoclassicism artists of this period sought inspiration from the art and culture of ancient Greece and Rome. Romantic artists were fascinated by ancient myths and legends' exotic, mysterious, and fantastical elements. They often used these themes to evoke strong emotions and explore the sublime. Surrealist artists explored the irrational and unconscious aspects of the mind. Some Surrealists incorporated mythological and historical references into their dreamlike and fantastical compositions. Many contemporary artists continue to draw inspiration from ancient history, art history, and mythologies.
Why do artists re-tell and incorporate these themes to explore issues of identity and power by referencing historical and mythological narratives?
In times of trauma and uncertainty, we often turn to nostalgia and old stories as a way of finding comfort and stability. Renaissance artists created throughout The Black Death and later Italian Wars. The American Revolutionary War and French Revolution waged throughout the Neoclassical period. Romanticism had the Napoleonic Wars. Surrealism emerged as a reaction to World War II. And contemporary artists have rarely known a time without war, conflict, uprisings, and plague. When faced with traumatic events, people often turn to nostalgia and old stories to invoke the feeling of simpler times. We opt for the predictability of stories, told and retold, as the comfort of these stories diverts the effort of processing new information, reducing stressors during current states of uncertainty.
The works in Daydreamers and Other Nightmares are built out of nostalgia, grasping for comfort and stability that was never known. These collections of work explore the intersection of art history, mythology, and queer identity and the works offer a fresh perspective on familiar stories, twisting and subverting traditional narratives to create an optimistic vision of the future. The works in this show explore how myths, legends, and the stories we tell ourselves shape the lens through which we see the world and twist and subvert traditional myths and legends to create optimistic visions of the future. They are referential, pulling from fairytales, mythologies, and history to witness and understand contemporary failings.
As millennial artists, these artists have been raised through war, political fallacies, recessions, pandemics, insurrections, and the continued stalemate over climate change, and they are attempting to cope with these instabilities and growing existential crises through a return to collective stories.
Though the work has reverence for the past, it also twists the source material, shining a light through the holes of the tried-and-true path to reveal the dark side of nostalgia. By turning over and dissecting these narratives we can open and receive the world as it is, a connective playground without singular truth or fact. This exhibition shows how artists can draw upon these themes to create works that speak to the human condition. As we navigate an increasingly complex world, the use of nostalgia and mythology in art may become even more important, offering a means of coping with the challenges of our times.
By referencing iconic works and stories, these artists tap into a collective cultural memory that invokes a sense of nostalgia and familiarity. Through their reinterpretations, they invite the viewer to see these works in a new light, offering a fresh perspective on well-known pieces. The works in Daydreamers and Other Nightmares argue that the use of nostalgia and mythology in art is not a form of escapism but a means of coping with trauma and imagining a better future. By drawing upon these shared cultural narratives, they invite the viewer to find solace in the familiar and the timeless.
Daydreamers and Other Nightmares explores the use of nostalgia and mythology in art as a means of coping with trauma and imagining a better future. It references well-known stories and works to tap into a collective cultural memory that invokes a sense of familiarity and comfort. By subverting and twisting traditional narratives, Daydreamers and Other Nightmares invites the viewer to see these works in a new light and offers a fresh perspective on familiar pieces. The exhibition argues that the use of nostalgia and mythology in art is not a form of escapism but a way to process trauma and cope with the challenges of our times. As we navigate an increasingly complex world, the themes explored in this exhibition may become even more important in helping us find solace and meaning in the familiar and the timeless.
