Curator and blogger Florencio “Lenny” Campello has organized a series of 18 exhibits featuring 600 female artists from the Washington, D.C. region under the project Women Artists of the DMV. The main exhibition is at American University’s Katzen Arts Center, displaying 63 pieces, with additional shows at venues like Strathmore Galleries in Bethesda and Montpelier Arts Center in Laurel. Campello hand-selected each work, receiving nearly 4,000 inquiries from local artists, and structures the shows in a three-tier pyramid from well-known to emerging artists.
This project matters because it directly addresses the underrepresentation of female artists and D.C.-area artists in local museums. By creating a large-scale, multi-venue survey, Campello amplifies visibility for hundreds of women artists, many of whom have never exhibited in a museum before. The initiative also highlights broader issues of gender and regional bias in the art world, offering a model for grassroots curation that challenges institutional gaps.