The Visual Arts Program provides access and connection to the arts and culture landscape in San Diego, offering unique opportunities to local and regional artists. Featured exhibitions can be viewed at Central Library’s Judith Harris Art Gallery. Rotating exhibitions by local artists and creative groups are displayed at several libraryf locations throughout the year. The visual arts program demonstrates the library’s role as a cultural institution embracing a broad range of disciplines while assisting San Diego's emerging, mid-career and professional artists achieve wider local, regional, and national attention.

For more information about library exhibitions, email us at OnView@sandiego.gov.

Featured Exhibitions

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 21, 2024 | Noon - 2 p.m.

As part of the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time: Art and Science Collide, the San Diego Public Library’s Visual Arts Program presents Helen and Newton Harrison: California Work, a retrospective exhibition about the work of husband-and-wife team Helen Mayer and Newton Harrison, who were among the earliest and most notable ecological artists. Founding members of the Visual Arts Department at UC San Diego, Helen and Newton were local San Diego artists for nearly four decades, where they developed their pioneering concepts of Ecological Art.

Helen and Newton Harrison: California Work is the first exhibition to focus on their California work, including nearly 20 projects produced between the late 1960s and 2000s. Presented as a multi-site exhibition in four locations around San Diego simultaneously, the exhibitions will examine the California works produced including: Urban Ecologies, The Prophetic Works, Saving the West, and Future Gardens.

Saving the West, presented at the San Diego Central Library will allow visitors to delve deeply into the series of works associated with the Harrisons’ research on the fragile and environmentally threatened ecologies of the Pacific Coast fog forest and the Sierra Nevada mountains. These bioregional works, mark the Harrisons’ growing interest in complex ecologies, the impacts of overexploitation and mismanagement of natural resources and the effects of global warming on the complex bionetworks of forests and watersheds. Works reveal the Harrisons’ concept of the Force Majeure and their increasing concern with the issue of global climate change.

Curated by Tatiana Sizonenko, PhD.

See more Helen and Newton Harrison: California Work at:

La Jolla Historical Society: September 19, 2024 – January 19, 2025
California Center for the Arts Escondido: September 21, 2024 – January 19, 2025
The Mandeville Art Gallery at UC San Diego: September 28, 2024 – December 7, 2024

About Pacific Standard Time 2024

The third regional collaboration in the Getty series, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, will focus on the intersection of science and art with exhibitions on subjects ranging from ancient cosmologies to indigenous sci-fi, and from environmental justice to artificial intelligence. Art & Science Collide will share groundbreaking research, create indelible experiences for the public, and generate new ways of understanding our complex world.

For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide, please visit pst.art

Featured Programs & Events

Opening Reception with LIVE music curation by Nick Lesly + small bites by UPAC Neighborhood Enterprise Center
Reception sponsored by the Friends of the Central Library
September 21|12:00 p.m. - 2 p.m.

How Do We Regenerate a Forest? Thinking with the Harrisons 
Keynote Address with Josh Harrison, Climate Science Alliance Dr. Megan Jennings, Joelene Tamm, Wesley Ruise Jr., Ruth Wallen and moderated by Anne Douglas and Chris Freemantle. 
November 12 | 5:30 p.m. - 8 p.m.

The Curious World of Seaweed
Exhibit
September 28, 2024 – January 19, 2025

An Artists Journey into the Science of Seaweed & the Stories of the Kelp Forest
Curatorial Lecture
November 22 | 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Family Day – DIY Native Seed Bombs
Art-Reach San Diego
November 23 | 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Influence & Inspiration: Working with the Harrisons
Ruth Wallen, Robin Brailsford, Tatiana Sizonenko
January 13 | 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

OnView - Local Arts

Carmel Valley
Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker
Rebecca Smith
August 28 - October 11, 2024

Central Library-2^nd Floor
Misti Washington Gourd and Basket Guild
October 1 - November 30, 2024

Central Library 9^th Floor, Special Collections
The General’s Newspaper
September 20 - November 30, 2024

Central Library – Popular Library Fairway
The Curious World of Seaweed
Josie Iselin
August 27, 2024 - January 19, 2025

Logan Heights
Our River, Our Water
Oscar J. Romo
October 2 - December 30, 2024

Mission Hills-Hillcrest/Knox 
Quiet Alchemy
Lauren Elyse S.
September 2 - November 25, 2024

Mission Hills-Hillcrest/Knox
Word Play
Don Strandberg
October 1 - December 30, 2024

Mission Valley
Twisted Timber
Negar Joy Monaghy
August 1 - October 26, 2024

Otay Mesa-Nestor
James Hubbell: Architecture of Jubilation-
Lado A Lado

Point Loma/Hervey
Ebb & Flow: Art Along the San Diego River
SD River Artists’ Alliance
October 3 - December 30, 2024

Pacific Beach/Taylor
Seaside Quilters Guild
August 15 - October 27, 2024

Rancho Bernardo
Stories in Color
Janet Perkin
October 1 - December 31, 2024

Rancho Peñasquitos
Vira Ustianska
October 1, 2024 - January 15, 2025

Various Locations | Fleet on the Go | Throughout 2024

College-Rolando: NANO-What Happens When Things Get Smaller, Inventors and Innovators, Bone Density | October 16 - December 13, 2024

City Heights/Weingart: Wentzscope | October 16 - December 13, 2024

Oak Park: NANO-Magnetic Sand Table | October 16 - December 13, 2024

San Ysidro: How a Telegraph Works, Color Printing | October 16 - December 13, 2024

Various Locations | The New Colossus | John Raymond Mireles | June 21 – October 31, 2024

College-Rolando: The Golden Age

City Heights/Weingart: Main Street USA

Rancho Peñasquitos: In Their Own Words

Pacific Beach/Taylor: Colonnade II

Valencia Park/Malcolm X: Colonnade III

San Ysidro: Duality

Point Loma/Hervey: Soulha, Somali

Linda Vista: Bibiche, Republic of Congo

University Community: Amand, Haiti

Explore past exhibitions at Central Library Art Gallery, including behind the scenes content and virtual tours.