Featured artists: Lita Albuquerque, Lisa Beck, Christopher Robin Duncan, Lia Halloran, David Huffman, Gary Lang, Charles Long, Jonathan Ryan, Penelope Umbrico.

… before the dawn brings together an intergenerational group of nine artists whom explore the enduring artistic, psychological and philosophical pull of the moon and the nocturnal sky. Sharing formal and existential curiosities, the participating artists engage the night as both a site of observation and imagination, where scientific inquiry, mythology, memory, and lived experience converge.

… before the dawn considers the conceptual landscape suspended between our earthly vantage point and the celestial body that has long shaped humanity's understanding of time, nature, and the cosmos. Simultaneously familiar and unknowable, the moon occupies a singular place within our collective imagination. It governs tides, marks the passage of time through its phases, inspires myths across cultures, and has served as both a scientific frontier and a symbol of longing, transformation, and transcendence. 

The artists in … before the dawn extend a centuries-long artistic lineage that has found inspiration in the night sky, while offering a contemporary sensibility to this timeless subject. Working across painting, sculpture, photography, and interdisciplinary practices, each artist constructs a deeply personal relationship with the moon as image, object, metaphor, and presence. Together, their works collapse the vastness of the cosmos into intimate encounters, transforming an ancient celestial constant into a moment in time that embraces an individual’s ability to reflect on perception, belonging, wonder, and the fragile conditions of life on Earth.

… before the dawn is curated with the assistance of gallery artist Whitney Bedford and Aandrea Stang, Director of the University Art Gallery at California State University, Dominguez Hills.