OPEN CALL: BINGO SHOW FALL 2026
Candela Photographic Arts is delighted to introduce our pilot BINGO open call, which will be on view from October 2 – October 24, and will culminate in Bingo Day: a closing day bingo fundraiser during which each work on view will go to a new home with a photo lover!
ACQUISITIONS & HONORARIUMS: UnBound15!
With money raised from this year’s fundraising efforts, we were able to collect additional photographic works for the Candela Collection. Thanks to all who gave, partied, and supported from afar.
UNB15! Artist Features: IX
COLLEEN KEIHM • CHRISTINE CARR• JESSE EGNER • GARY EMRICH • ROSAMUND CASEY • ISAAC MCKENNA • FURICHA (YULIIA GLADKA)
UNB15! Artist Features: VIII
SUSAN LAPIDES • CAROL GOLEMBOSKI • ANNETE FOURNET • KEN WOOD • ANASTASIA SIERRA • ALEYANA MITCHELL • PHILIP SAGER
UNB15! Artist Features: VII
NICK ORTOLEVA • WILL DOUGLAS • RICK WRIGHT • NICK GLADKIY & YULIIA GLADKA
UNB15! Artist Features: VI
GLEN SCHEFFER • CHRISTIAAN LOPEZ-MIRO • CURTIS MILLER • KAT BAWDEN • ZACHARY KOLDEN • SHEIDA SOLEIMANI
UNB15! Artist Features: V
CHRISTA BLACKWOOD • MICHAEL VALIQUETTE • ALEXANDER LAURENT RUBALCAVA • ALVIN LESTER • LALI KHALID • DAVID ZHENG
UNB15! Artist Features: IV
TOBIAS SHAW • DUSTIN RIGGS • JULIA PARRIS • MARGO GEDDES • LAUREN BERTELSON • ROSHAUN STEPHENSON • GRACE WESTON
UNB15! Artist Features: III
LAILA NAHAR & AMAYA MAHMUD • DANA STIRLING • VAUNE TRACHTMAN • CLAIRE KOSKY • AMANDA SAUER • RICH-JOSEPH FACUN • ALINE SMITHSON • TOD KAPKE • JENNY YIYUN KUO
UNB15! Artist Features: II
JEREMY STARN • HENRY CRAWLEY • NATHAN WILKINSON • JODY SERVON & LORENE DELANY-ULLMAN • SARA J. WINSTON & ILEANA RAMIREZ • DIMITRI STASZEWSKI • KATE THOMPSON
UNB15! Artist Features: I
NICOLE ROSENTHAL • ANNE ROWLAND • JAMIE V ROBERTSON • JONAH REENDERS • BRANDON TOWNS • JACK FOX
The 2026 CANDELAFEST Moodboard!
Wondering what to wear to this year’s fundraising festivities? Come as you are, or grab some inspiration from our 2026 mood board!
CANDELAR FEATURE: JULY
Katie Prock is a photographic artist and book maker. Prock earned her MFA in Studio Art at Florida Atlantic University. Her practice utilizes alternative printing techniques and incorporates handcrafted processes which emphasize chance occurrence and imperfections. Her work and research focus on topics such as identity, gender, family history, and girlhood. In addition to being exhibited across the United States, Prock’s work has been featured abroad in the Body + Memory + City Photo Festival in Alicante, Spain, and Fotofestival Lenzburg in Switzerland.
OPENING: UnBound15!
Candela Photographic Arts is excited to announce the opening of our fifteenth annual summer exhibition, UnBound15!, a group show featuring the work of 66 juried and invited artists from across the contemporary photographic landscape. This year’s exhibition will be on view from Wednesday, July 1st through Saturday, August 8th, 2026, and brings together a wide range of photographic practices. Featured works will also be viewable and available for purchase on our website throughout the run of the exhibition.
The UnBound! Party Becomes CANDELAFEST!
Join us on August 1 for CANDELAFEST!, The First-ish Annual Pagan Chicken Party & Summer Fundraiser as we prepare for another year of artist labor and collective possibilities. The evening welcomes the return of the beloved back alley fried chicken, live performers, raffle prizes, mildly mischievous activities, interactive pagan goddesses, and other ritual absurdities.
CANDELAR FEATURE: JUNE
Michael Young is a lens-based artist whose work explores themes of masculinity, personal identity, community, and memory. He has been named a Top 50 artist in Photolucida’s Critical Mass (2023, 2021), a Top 10 winner of LensCulture Critics’ Choice, and a winner of Feature Shoot’s Emerging Photography Award.
Introducing Candela Photographic Arts
After fifteen years as Candela Books + Gallery, we are excited to share that we have officially received our 501(c)(3) nonprofit status and are reintroducing ourselves as Candela Photographic Arts, a transition that has been years in the making.
CANDELAR FEATURE: MAY
Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Christian Lee is a 2026 Documentary Fellow at The Gotham, supported by NBC Universal, and a 2026 A-DOC Allies Fellow, working on his feature film debut, a docufiction drama on the first African American church in South Central, Los Angeles. Working between photography and filmmaking, Lee studied under Cauleen Smith, Andrea Fraser, Bridget R. Cooks, Cosmo Whyte, and Renee Tajima-Peña.
CANDELAR FEATURE: APRIL
Nicole Driscoll is a multidisciplinary artist based in Charlotte, working primarily with photography and video. Her practice explores themes of identity, memory, and the emotional impact of personal and collective histories. She uses analog and experimental techniques to create layered visual narratives rooted in nostalgia and transformation. Her work has been exhibited at The Light Factory, Goodyear Arts, The Curated Fridge, and McColl Center. In 2023, her photograph Hands in the Sky was selected by ArtPop Street Gallery for public display across Charlotte and in Times Square. Driscoll was awarded the Emerging Creators Fellowship in 2024 and participated in residencies at Mudhouse (Greece) and Walkaway House.
CANDELAR FEATURE: MARCH
Wes Bell’s photographs have appeared in publications such as British GQ, Conde Nast Traveler, The New York Times Magazine and People. Bell focuses on art photography, deploying his square medium format film camera, and photographing outdoors on location. Wes' analog hand-printed gelatin silver photographs have been widely exhibited internationally, including the recent Oil - Beauty and Horror in the Petrol Age at Germany's Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg and closer to home, Rapt and Callus, a solo exhibition at Contemporary Calgary for the Exposure 2022 Photography Festival. He is currently working on a photobook project called On The Line.