Unleashing the Inner Plastic Dinosaur

Periodically throughout the Toy Stories: Paintings by Aaron Pickens exhibit (January 11 – March 30, 2019), we invited gallery visitors to create their own tableaux with toys similar to those used by Aaron Pickens in his paintings.
Visit Toy Stories: Audience Participation to see a few of our favorite things…
Don’t see your tableaux yet? Send us your shot – we’re still adding them to the mix!
Click to view the Toy Stories exhibition catalogue, containing art images of the full exhibit, with artist info and commentary.

Aaron Pickens is a celebrated and rising artistic talent as well as a dedicated educator, fostering new artists through his teaching at area academic institutions and collaborations with other studios. His popular and thought-provoking paintings of toy tableaux demonstrate a strong duality of meaning and whimsy that explores matters of social justice, yet is accessible to the child within us all.