MISSION + PURPOSE

Goodyear Arts is an artist-led, nonprofit residency and multi-arts events program based on this truth: Artists need SPACE, TIME, MONEY, and COMMUNITY. In underused commercial spaces, we offer paid studio residencies for excellent and daring local visual, literary, and performing artists and present free-and-public arts events. We showcase the work of resident and visiting artists and give space to worthy but placeless artistic endeavors.

OUR PROGRAMMING

Goodyear Arts presents free and public performances, exhibitions, and multidisciplinary events because we believe all audiences deserve to engage with exceptional and challenging contemporary work. Through our work, we broaden the community’s access to artistic practices by supporting artists, curators, and organizers in an inclusive setting.

Core to our mission is our residency program which provides time, space, money, and community to up to 12 local artists a year. Alumni of the residency program are invited to join the Goodyear Arts Collective, who make use of free studio and rehearsal space at Goodyear Arts.

HISTORY

Goodyear Arts was founded in 2015 when a developer invited local artists to activate a former Goodyear tire and oil change center in Uptown pre-demolition, an experiment to demonstrate how the traditional arts landscape in Charlotte could be challenged was conceived. After this initial success, GYA activated a second location for one-year and has since settled into our third/current space at Camp North End which has 25 artist studios; rehearsal rooms; digital and film projection; and gallery space. 

Throughout our history as an artist-run space, GYA has continually embraced risk, questioned assumptions, and explored ways to support artists and forge connections with the public in intimate, experimental, and generative ways. GYA has transformed from a three-month opportunity with a local developer, to a nomadic organization that thrives on change and creativity, to its celebrated place in Charlotte’s cultural community as an alternative art space that operates beyond the constraints of traditional gallery activities.

Goodyear Arts was founded by artists Amy Bagwell, Graham Carew, and Amy Herman.