60th Anniversary Silent Auction
In celebration of six decades defending and advancing civil liberties, the ACLU of North Carolina presents a special art auction featuring works by artists with North Carolina roots. This collection honors the state’s enduring legacy of activism and artistic expression, showcasing pieces that reflect on the core themes of the civil rights and justice movements: equality, resilience, freedom, and hope.
Proceeds from the auction will support the ACLU-NC’s continued work to protect the rights and freedoms of all North Carolinians.
Join us in celebrating 60 years of courage, creativity, and commitment to justice through the transformative power of art.
Father Liberty
40” (width) x 30” (height)
Oil on Linen
Visual artist Clarke Munford describes his practice as a combination of photography, oil painting, and the desire to make his subjects seem as real as possible. With a background in live figure charcoal drawing, Mumford accesses historical archives, and employs color and tone to create a visual experience that challenges his audience to embrace his subjects as much as he does while painting.
Pomelo
24” height x 48”width
Oil on Board
Isabel Lu's work unpacks binary ideas of medicine, remedy, and care; a reflection of her own experiences in the context of her cultural background and the contemporary, social landscape. Lu’s work is constantly shifting between painting, herbalism, and community engagement, inspired by Western and Chinese frameworks of wellbeing, they combine portraiture with silly yet meaningful symbols from medicine and mythology; Yin & Yang–misinterpreted as female and male–reflects a fluid balance of shadow/sunlight, water/fire, intuition/logic; the five elements–fire, wood, water, metal, and earth–correspond to movements, seasons, organs, and emotions across nature. Isabel pairs these opposing, yet complementary elements together, reflecting on a constant shift between turmoil and harmony. Isabel’s practice is a continuous journey of unlearning and developing trust in uncertain spaces, especially in a society obsessed with binary diagnoses of gender, sexuality, and illness.
Through the Fire I & II
Through the Fire I 18’ x 18”; Oil on canvas
Through the Fire II 34.25” x 60”; Oil on canvas
Telvin Wallace uses painting and film-based imagery to explore the intersections of justice, identity, and representation. His work often draws from cinematic scenes, news archives, and lived experience — reimagined through the lens of his community. Exploring how Black life endures inside systems designed to control it and how power decides who gets to be seen and how, Wallace’s practice is rooted in personal and regional history, reframing those narratives through imagery that speaks to resilience, memory, and the ways creativity survives even in the most restricted spaces. Hailing from a small town in North Carolina where opportunity was scarce but creativity was constant, Wallace understands the transformational power of art from places of self-empowerment and privilege; acknowledging that many of the people he grew up with never saw art until they went to prison, where it became a form of survival and self-recognition.