Three ArtPrize Exhibitions Center Veterans Justice Involved Young Women and Refugee Children

Healing in Arts exhibitions Use Personal Storytelling and Collaborative Art to Reveal Identity, Resilience, Belonging and Hope

GRAND RAPIDS , MI, UNITED STATES, September 23, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Three Healing in Arts exhibitions now on view during ArtPrize invite visitors to encounter the people behind labels that can too easily define them. Through portraits, personal stories and collaborative artwork, veterans, justice-involved young women and refugee children share experiences of service, sacrifice, identity, belonging, resilience and hope.

Although each exhibition represents a different community and lived experience, all three create space for people to tell their own stories. Together, the works ask viewers to look beyond a uniform, a record or a refugee label and recognize the individual life, dignity and possibility behind it.

ArtPrize runs through October 3, 2026, at venues throughout Grand Rapids. Visitors may experience the three exhibitions during the remainder of ArtPrize and follow Healing in Arts for future exhibition dates and community events.

Art of Resilience
Located at Veterans Memorial Park in Grand Rapids, Art of Resilience brings together veteran artwork and personal stories reflecting military service, sacrifice, transition, disability, resilience and hope.

The exhibition includes veterans from multiple generations and military experiences, including Vietnam-era and post-9/11 veterans, women veterans, combat veterans, veterans with disabilities and amputations, veterans living with visible and invisible wounds, and older veterans in their 90s. Their work gives form to experiences that are often difficult to explain and demonstrates how creativity can support connection, purpose and emotional regulation.

Featured works include 250 Years 250 Stories, a floating mosaic painting bearing veterans’ names and dates; a tile-top table assembled from personalized tiles created by 12 women veterans; and a patriotic work made by a 92-year-old veteran who cut and stained individual pieces of wood.

The exhibition also shares the story of a Vietnam veteran who has lived for years in a wheelchair and uses paint-by-number projects to regulate his thought life, remain focused on what is positive and continue creating. His work reflects the deeply personal ways art can help a veteran find steadiness, expression and hope.

Rather than presenting a single version of what it means to be a veteran, Art of Resilience makes room for the complexity of life before, during and after military service. The featured veterans share not only what they have endured, but also the strength, relationships and purpose that continue to shape their lives.

This Is Me
Presented at The Grey Rabbit Gallery, This Is Me features self-portraits created by justice-involved young women exploring identity, strength and hope. Through self-portraiture, participants determine how they want to be seen instead of allowing a record, circumstance or difficult chapter to define their entire identity. Their work invites viewers to encounter them as individuals with voices, experiences, strengths and futures of their own.

Between Two Worlds Stories of Becoming
Displayed in the green space across from DeVos Place at 300 Monroe Ave. in Grand Rapids, Between Two Worlds Stories of Becoming uses portraits, collaborative artwork and an interactive component for visitors to explore how refugee children build identity while navigating cultures, memories, languages and evolving ideas of home.

The work looks beyond the circumstances that brought the children and their families to the United States. It gives children the opportunity to express who they are becoming and presents belonging not as a fixed destination, but as something shaped through family, community, culture and personal experience.

Art as a Bridge to Understanding
A veteran is more than a uniform or a chapter of military service. A justice-involved young woman is more than a record. A refugee child is more than the circumstances that brought a family to a new country. A portrait can reveal personality, a personal story can create understanding, and a shared creative experience can begin conversations among people whose lives might otherwise never intersect.

Across all three exhibitions, stories of hardship are shared without allowing hardship to have the final word. The artwork creates room for dignity, connection, grace and hope while inviting the public to see each participant as a whole person.

About Healing in Arts
Healing in Arts is a Grand Rapids nonprofit that uses trauma-informed art workshops and public exhibitions to foster healing, connection and belonging. Its programs serve veterans and their families, justice-involved youth, children, individuals with disabilities and other communities through meaningful creative experiences. Learn more at healinginarts.org.

Media Contact
Pamela Alderman
Healing in Arts | 616-531-6494
pamela@healinginarts.org | healinginarts.org

Ali Craig
Victor + Valor
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