Gary Red Oak O’Neil: Excavations

Tuesday, September 9 – Sunday, November 16, 2025


Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, South Gallery
283 Washington Terrace, Middletown, Connecticut

Hours:
Tuesday through Sunday, Noon to 5pm

 

Gary Red Oak O’Neil: Excavations


Excavations
, Gary Red Oak O’Neil’s solo exhibition in the South Gallery Reading Room of the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, features the artist’s ceramic practice, which draws on his deep connection to the land and the materiality of the soil itself. The works include a range of styles reflecting O’Neil’s enduring career spanning nearly 60 years, along with newer pieces inspired by the current archaeological dig taking place at the Lt. John Hollister (1650–1715) site in Glastonbury, Connecticut which has uncovered Native American pottery and other belongings that offer a glimpse of the Wangunk tribe’s interactions with early 17th-century British settlers. To excavate is to ascertain, to determine, to discover that which has been hidden or lost. O’Neil’s pots and trays are vessels that carry the weight of fragmented history like the beveled edges of broken shards. As such, the exhibit speaks to layers of newfound evidence that have been submerged and recovered.

Curated by J. Kēhaulani Kauanui in partnership with Associate Director of Visual Art Benjamin Chaffee ’00 and Exhibitions Manager Rosemary Lennox.

Exhibition co-sponsored by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and Wesleyan’s Center for the Humanities.

This exhibition will be closed from Saturday, October 18 through Tuesday, October 21, 2025.

Held in conjunction with the exhibition, a Wangunk History Symposium, “Emerging from Erasure: Indigenous and Settler Colonial Histories of the Wangunk People,” will take place on Friday, October 24 and Saturday, October 25, 2025. Please contact Wesleyan’s Center for the Humanities for more information.


Opening ReceptionWednesday, September 24, 2025 from 4:30pm to 6pm 

Lunch and LearnMonday, September 29, 2025 at Noon

Student-Led Exhibition ToursSaturday, October 4 through Saturday, December 6, 2025 at 2pm

Artist Talk: Gary Red Oak O’Neil with J. Kēhaulani KauanuiFriday, October 24, 2025 at 4:30pm

Lunch and LearnMonday, November 3, 2025 at Noon