Pictures & Poems

The Carnegie Center for Arts and History presents Pictures & Poems, a collaborative exhibition bringing together contemporary photography and poetry in partnership with Little Oak Press, the Charlottesville, Virginia based publisher known for championing intimate, place-driven books and magazines.

Pictures & Poems explores the resonant dialogue between image and text, highlighting how photographs and poems can operate as parallel forms of storytelling. Each art form is shaped by memory, place, and emotional experience in distinct yet complementary ways.

The exhibition features photographs by Matt Eich, Al J. Thompson, Ash Adams, and Ocean Vuong, alongside poems by Doug Van Gundy, Tanio M. McCallum, Ash Adams, and Ocean Vuong. Together, these artists blur the boundaries between visual and literary practices, inviting viewers to slow down and consider how meaning emerges through careful looking and attentive reading.

Many of the works in Pictures & Poems reflect shared concerns with landscape, identity, and personal history. By presenting photography and poetry side by side, the exhibition creates space for reflection and emphasizes the ways both mediums can offer profound insight through restraint, lyricism, and emotional precision.

This exhibition underscores the Carnegie Center’s ongoing commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration and to presenting work that deepens conversations around contemporary art and literature.

On view March 11, 2026 - May 30, 2026